A former NBA superstar known for quietly doing great deeds has done it again.
After Shaquille O’Neal heard that Malachi Nasi Hemphill accidentally shot and killed himself Monday night, he said he felt moved to act.
The 13-year-old Forest Park boy was playing with a gun while live on Instagram, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution previously reported.
Hemphill’s mother, Shaniqua Stephens, said she heard a loud bang, went upstairs and saw his smartphone streaming live.
Police arrived to find Hemphill critically injured at his home on Pineridge Court and he was pronounced dead at Grady Memorial Hospital.
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O’Neal said in a statement that he sympathized with the mother who lost her only son.
"No mother should have to go through this,” O’Neal said. “I can only imagine the pain that she and all of Malachi’s family must be feeling. I just wanted to do what I could to help them at such a terrible time."
O’Neal also helped a homeless man in Atlanta last year.
Jimmy James Brown, a 6-foot-11-inch, 275-pound man, was living near an auto parts store and couldn’t find clothes and shoes that fit. O’Neal and former Atlanta Hawks star Dikembe Mutombo found about Brown’s situation from an Atlanta police officer who got the word out.
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