Teen accidentally kills himself as friends watch on Instagram Live
A 13-year-old Georgia boy accidentally shot and killed himself on Monday as friends watched live on Instagram.
On Monday, after he took out the trash, Malachi Hemphill appeared on Instagram Live handling a gun. His mother Shaniqua Stephens later learned someone had asked why he didn’t have a clip in the gun and told him to put one in.
“As he put the clip in the gun," she said, "that is when the gun went off."
Stephens and her daughter heard "a big boom" and ran upstairs.
"I just knew that it was something that was wrong,” she said. “We kicked in the door. We found him just laying there in a pool of blood."
His phone was still on.
"My daughter screamed and said, ‘Mom turn his phone off!" she recounted. "As I proceeded to look at his phone he was on Instagram Live.”
Hemphill was rushed to the hospital where he died. Stephens said it was an accident and not an intentional suicide.
Several of his friends were watching when the shooting happened. Stephens said they rushed to her house afterward.
“There was about 40 to 50 kids outside," she said. "I guess these were the kids that were watching on live that live in the area. I guess when it happened they just ran over here.”
Stephens isn't completely sure how Malachi got the gun. She was told he got it from a friend who got it from someone else. Detectives told her they are working to find out who originally had the gun and passed it to the friend.
“This is just a pain that will never go away," she said. "He was my only son. He was just only 13. Just the thought of me seeing him on the floor will never leave my brain."
Stephens said it was hard to keep track of her son's social media activities even though she and her husband Ernest monitored his profiles often. Both said they tried their best to know where their kids were and who they were friends with. They worked to be role models for their children, but said the wrong influence outside the home and a parent’s eye can still lead to tragedy.
“(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," Stephens said. "Monitor their phones, just monitor your children. More now than anything.”
She said she hopes parents get the message to keep a vigilant eye on what children are doing and who they are doing it with.
“It can happen to the best parents," said Hemphill's stepfather Ernest Stephens, "it can happen to the best people."
Source:- https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/04/13/teen-accidentally-kills-himself-friends-watch-instagram-live/100419238/?siteID=je6NUbpObpQ-P1c2rt8q5Zi6HTAQ7l27Kw
