Mexican teen, 15, accidentally kills herself with an Uzi she found at the bottom of a wardrobe as she tried to record a TikTok video of her posing with it
- Yazmín Esmeralda accidentally fatally shot herself with a Uzi submachine gun
- The 15-year-old found the weapon in the bottom of her grandmother’s wardrobe while visiting her Sinaloa, Mexico home
- She asked her brother to film her holding the gun for a TikTok video when it accidentally went off, a state prosecutor said
- It is unclear how the automatic weapon came to be in the house
- Mexico’s army stopped using 9mm Uzis over difficulties with the safety lock and it’s ‘tendency to go off accidentally’
A 15-year-old Mexican girl has died after accidentally shooting herself while posing with an Uzi submachine gun for a TikTok video.
Yazmín Esmeralda was visiting her grandmother’s home in the town of Guasave, Sinaloa’s with her family when the incident happened, it was reported.
The state prosecutor’s office said the girl found the weapon in the bottom of her grandmother’s bedroom wardrobe.
It is believed she then asked her brother to film her posing with the gun for a video she could upload to TikTok.
Yazmín Esmeralda, 15, had asked her brother to film her posing with the Uzi at her grandmother’s Sinaloa, Mexico home for a video she could upload to TikTok when it accidentally fired, killing her (stock photo)
But the gun went off by accident and instantly killed Yazmin. Her mother was woken up by the sound of a gunshot.
It remains unclear how the automatic weapon came to be in the house, Sara Bruna Quiñonez Estrada, Sinaloa’s state prosecutor, told VICE News.
‘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,’ she said in a statement.
Quiñonez Estrada added that Mexico’s army had stopped using 9mm Uzis because of difficulties with the weapon’s safety lock and an apparent tendency ‘to go off accidentally’.
While it is extremely hard and expensive to obtain a permit for a weapon in Mexico, the country is awash with illegal weapons thousands of them bought in US gun stores and then trafficked illegally over the border.
Sinaloa, where her mothers house is located, was also home to the cartel once headed by Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán (pictured), the notorious drug laws who is now imprisoned in the US
The death of the 15-year-old girl has sparked concerns about the attraction of young people towards cartels.
‘That she chose to record a clip [in that way] shows that our youth is immersed in that culture,’ said Quiñonez Estrada. ‘It’s what they hear about at all hours.’
Sinaloa, where her grandmother’s house is located, was also home to the cartel once headed by Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán, the notorious drug laws who is now imprisoned in the US.
The 64-year-old was found guilty on 10 counts in February 2019, including trafficking billions of dollars of drugs and conspiring to murder enemies as the co-founder of Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel.
El Chapo has been serving a life sentence at ADX Florence, the most secure federal prison, in Colorado, and was also ordered to forfeit $12.7 billion.
El Chapo is confined to a 7-by-12-foot concrete cell with double doors in a section dubbed ‘Range 13’ for 23 hours a day and is only allowed to leave his quarters for one hour.
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