A 13-year-old Georgia boy is dead after accidentally shooting himself while filming on Instagram Live on Monday. Authorities are now investigating how a young boy got his hands on a gun.
NBC 11 Alive reports that Shaniqua Stephens watched her teen son, Malachi Hemphill, take out the trash and make his way back to his bedroom on Monday evening, a usual, routine chore for the boy. She didn’t realize that within minutes, he’d be dead.
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“I heard a big boom. I couldn’t tell if it was a gun shot or what. I just knew that it was something that was wrong.”
Posted by Malachi Hemphill on Friday, February 15, 2013
Stephens and her daughter rushed upstairs after hearing the loud boom, and went to straight to Malachi’s bedroom. After breaking into this locked door, Stephens saw her 13-year-old boy on the floor, laying in a pool of blood. Her daughter started screaming to her to turn Malachi’s phone off after she noticed he filmed the entire incident on Instagram Live.
“We kicked in the door. We found him just laying there in a pool of blood. My daughter screamed and said, ‘Mom turn his phone off!’ As I proceeded to look at his phone he was on Instagram Live.”
While Stephens struggles to come to terms with her son’s untimely death, she urges parents to take extra measures to ensure their children are safe.
“(The) Detective asked me yesterday, ‘What was Malachi’s Instagram name?’ I couldn’t tell him what Malachi’s Instagram name was because he would make up so many different pages. Monitor their phones, just monitor your children. More now than anything….”
The story is still developing. Check back with Crime Online as additional details become available.
[Feature Photo: Instagram Screenshot]
