*A 13-year-old boy in Atlanta has died after accidentally shooting himself while streaming on Instagram Live, according to local TV station WXIA.
“I heard a big boom,” his mother Shaniqua Stephens told the station. “I couldn’t tell if it was a gunshot or what.”
Stephens had just watched her son, Malachi Hemphill, take out the trash Monday evening when she heard the gunshot. She and her daughter rushed to Malachi’s room and found him in a pool of blood…his phone still streaming on Instagram Live.
“My daughter screamed and said, ‘Mom turn his phone off!’ As I proceeded to look at his phone he was on Instagram Live,” said Stephens.
Malachi was live on Instagram holding a gun when it suddenly went off.
Stephens told WXIA that one of his IG Live viewers told him to put a clip in the gun and he obliged. Stephens believes it was an accident and not a suicide. He was rushed to Grady Hospital where he died of his injuries.
“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,” said Stephens.
Detectives are now working to find out how Malachi got ahold of the gun. Stephens said she was told that he got the gun from a friend who got it from someone else.
“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.”
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