© Courtesy of familyMalachi Hemphill
Shaniqua Stephens had just watched her 13-year-old son take out the trash Monday evening when she heard a noise. "I just knew that it was something that was wrong," she said.
She and her daughter ran upstairs and found him. "We kicked in the door. We found him just laying there in a pool of blood," Stephens recounted. "My daughter screamed and said, 'Mom turn his phone off!' As I proceeded to look at his phone he was on Instagram Live."
Thirteen-year-old Malachi Hemphill was live on the social media site Instagram handling the gun when it went off. He was rushed to Grady Hospital where he died.
Forest Park Police said they responded at about 10:40 p.m.
"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 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."
She has been told that someone asked why he didn't have a clip in the gun and told him to put a clip in the gun. "As he put the clip in the gun, that is when the gun went off," she said.
Stephens isn't completely sure how Malachi got the gun. She was told he got the gun from a friend who got it from someone else. Detectives said they are consulting with the Clayton County D.A.'s office, and depending on where their investigation leads, criminal charges are a possibility.
She said it was hard to keep track of his activities on social media 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.
Officials at Babb Middle School, where Malachi was a 7th-grade student, have brought in grief counselors to assist students.
Reader Comments
To really answer you however, just go put yourself in police car for a couple months, that ought to help you understand.
The only thing that could get us spanked was getting near my father's guns - only my brother was stupid enough to try. I my youth in my family there were a total of two spankings - THEY WERE SERIOUS.
We would go shooting with my father on weekends (he occasionally duck hunted but the only duck I ever shot at, rather than lead it, I aimed just behind its tail.
Obviously this kid did not have basic firearm training - which begins with if you don't know how to use it, don't pick it up. We too had rifle club at my school, as Baron. One wonders it they were taught as being what they are, well, there's always another idiot, though. The only difference is now we have 24/7 coverage of everything that happens, mostly with video.
I guess we should outlaw phone cameras or selfie-capable cameras to help prevent all the selfie deaths. (Sarcasm.)
R.C.