A 21-year-old man and two underage girls have been charged in the death of a Latina teenager from Colorado, who was shot in the head while recording videos for the TikTok social network, according to police and court documents.
Aaliyah Salazar, 14, was recording dances in a house in Monte Vista, in a rural area in the south of the state, when a Glock semi-automatic firearm with which the young woman and her friends were apparently playing was fired, according to an affidavit of the case cited by the Daily Mail newspaper.
Stock image of a Glock. William Campbell / Getty Images
The two minors were charged with reckless homicide and possession of a firearm, and could face a maximum of six years in prison, according to police.
The boyfriend of one of them, identified as Emiliano Vargas, 21, was the owner of the weapon and has been accused of allowing or providing a minor with a firearm.
"The frustration I have with that is that if you take a life you should have to pay dearly," the victim's grandfather, Gary Salazar, told local news channel 9 News.
"Not with a slap on the hand and say don't do it again," he added.
One of the detainees told the police that the other young woman, who is allegedly Vargas's girlfriend, took the gun, pointed it at Salazar and fired.
She then left her on the bed in a room in the house, which belongs to the man's grandmother, according to the New York Post.
Asked about the context of the incident, the girl told the agents: "It could have been an accident."
Vargas, who allegedly had the gun unprotected on a shelf, told police he wasn't there when the shot was fired, according to the affidavit.
According to the Daily Mail, he was working at a Safeway supermarket in the area.
The friends had been watching TV and recording TikTok videos all day when Vargas's girlfriend took the gun down from the shelf and showed it to the others, according to the affidavit.
[Two wrestlers are killed in Mexico. One cartel also left a message for others]
They create a viral challenge on TikTok that motivates young people to steal cars
Aug. 16, 202203:39
[A mother explains how her 6-year-old daughter was saved from being kidnapped outside her home]
Officers who responded to the scene said the firearm was located in a way that suggested the shot was not self-inflicted, according to the document.
Police recovered a phone used to record the TikTok videos and located one recorded just before the shooting.
In it, a minor is seen dancing, another "playing with something" and the victim almost in the same place where her body was found, according to the affidavit, written by detective Ezequiel Sisneros.
They arrest a young man who ran over a man in a wheelchair in New York
Aug. 30, 202200:41
[This young Latina disappeared without a trace in California after being last seen in a store. The police suspect a crime]
After examining the cell phone, the agents found in the TikTok account a photo from last May in which a weapon appears, although the affidavit does not specify if it is the same one involved in Salazar's death.
