A 15-year-old girl in Sinaloa, Mexico accidentally killed herself after she tried to film a TikTok video while posing with a loaded 9mm Uzi submachine gun. The popularity and attraction of the narco lifestyle in the state, which is run by the Sinaloa drug cartel, was largely to blame for the teen’s stunt.
- Yazmín Esmeralda was visiting her grandmother at the time of the accident. She was in the small town of Guasave with her mother and younger brother in January 2022 when she found the gun at the bottom of a bedroom closet.
- She asked her brother to film her holding the gun. She simply wanted to pose with the weapon to look hard on social media. According to interviews her family gave to local press and the state prosecutor, she planned to upload the video of herself with the uzi to TikTok. in particular.
- The gun went off by accident. Yazmin was killed instantly after she was struck by the weapon. Her mother, who was asleep at the time, woke up to the sounds of the shots, local media reports.
- It’s still unclear who brought the weapon into the house. Sara Bruna Quiñonez Estrada, Sinaloa’s state prosecutor, told VICE World News that the cartel had stopped using 9mm Uzis because of its difficult safety lock and accidental firings. It’s said to be difficult for regular civilians to legally get permits to own weapons in Mexico. “The fact that there were weapons in the house, that weren’t controlled, is the responsibility of the adults who knew there were children in the house,” Quiñonez Estrada said.
