Teenager accidentally kills himself as friends watch on Instagram Live

'Monitor their phones, just monitor your children. More now than anything'

Malachi Hemphill was 13 years old (Facebook)

A 13-year-old boy has accidentally killed himself while live-streaming a video on Instagram.

Malachi Hemphill had been posing with a gun on Instagram Live when he mistakenly pulled the trigger at his home in Forest Park, Georgia, in the US.

His body was found by family members, who broke down his bedroom door after hearing a loud bang.

“My daughter screamed and said, ‘Mom turn his phone off!'” Malachi’s mother, Shaniqua Stephens, told WXIA.

“As I proceeded to look at his phone he was on Instagram Live.”

He was taken to the nearby Grady Hospital, where he died.

The teenager is believed to have mistakenly triggered the gun when he tried to put a clip in it, at the request of one of the viewers.

Several of Malachi’s friends are believed to have been watching the video stream, and Ms Stephens said that around “40 or 50 kids” turned up outside the house after the incident.

“I guess these were the kids that were watching that live in the area,” she said. “I guess when it happened they just ran over here.”

Ms Stephens isn’t sure how her son got his hands on the gun in the first place, but police are investigating the possibility that it was passed to him by a friend, who got it from somebody else.

“[The] Detective asked me yesterday, ‘What was Malachi’s Instagram name?’” said Ms Stephens. “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.”