Forest Park Teen Kills Himself As Viewers Watch On Instagram Live

FOREST PARK, GA — It was an accident. That's what Ernest and Shaniqua Stephens want people to know about the tragic death of their son 13-year-old Malachi Hemphill. Police said Malachi accidentally fatally shot himself in his room Monday evening while he was live-streaming on the social media site Instagram. Scores of friends watched the incident, which has shaken the Forest Park community.

The teen was rushed to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead, according to news reports. "I heard a big boom. I couldn’t tell if it was a gunshot or what," the boy's mother, Shaniqua Stephens, told WXIA-TV. She said that she had just saw her son take out the trash. Now, she heard a loud boom. "I just knew that it was something that was wrong,” she was quoted as saying.

The family said that Malachi was not a troubled child or distraught in any way. Malachi was reportedly told by a viewer to put a clip in the gun. When he did, he mishandled it, pulling the trigger by mistake. (SIGN UP: Get Patch's Daily Newsletter and Real Time News Alerts. Or, if you have an iPhone, download the free Patch app.)

Read more: Shaquille O'Neal to pay for funeral of teen who fatally shot himself on Instagram

“We kicked in the door. We found him just laying there in a pool of blood," Stephens told the TV station, reliving the moment she and her daughter saw the worst thing they'd ever seen in their lives. "My daughter screamed and said, ‘Mom turn his phone off!' As I proceeded to look at his phone he was on Instagram Live.”

The advocacy group B4UClick has information about Internet safety and how parents can monitor their children's lives online. Among the tips it offers is to keep track of how long your child is on the Internet so you can manage acceptable time limits. The site also has several reporting tools that let parents instantly report malicious or inappropriate content, spam or abuse.

Malachi's parents said that they tried to watch the teen's online use, but he would make multiple account names, which were hard to track.

Law enforcement authorities are investigating how Malachi got the gun, which was purportedly given to him by another teen.

Moments after the incident a crowd of young people congregated outside the family's home, many of them purportedly viewers of Malachi's Instagram Live video and witnesses to his death.

The family has set up a GoFundMe account to assist with funeral expenses related to Malachi's burial. The site's message reads:

Could you have imagine what he meant to his mother? We all have our visions of what "our child" would look like, would smell like, would act like and who he would be in life! Unfortuntely Shaniqua's time was cut short with her only son Malachi who was 13 years of age. I know, I know another go fund me account? No, this is an account that will help a greiving mother lay her child to rest! Malachi was an intelligent young man who was going to be something in life, he enjoyed playing basketball with his friends (and even crossed his own grandmother up a couple of times) hanging with his family, social media (I mean what teen doesn't?) of course staying "Fly" so we had to say shopping ! On April 11th, 2017 Malachi's heart stopped beating due to a gunshot wound. In his fathers words "no matter if I was here or gone he had the heart of a man, he knew he was the man of the house. My boy died fighting with his eyes open" and in his mothers words "I WILL LOVE YOU FOREVER" We the Hemphill-Stephens family ask that you donate whatever you can and if you cannot make a donation please share this page. Malachi's funeral will be held next weekend and all proceeds will go to the funeral home cost. Let's help the next child and put the guns down !

As of Thursday afternoon, the GoFundMe had reached $600 of a $6,000 goal.

Image via GoFundMe