A 23-year-old influencer was shot and killed on Tuesday at a magnificence salon in Jalisco, Mexico, whereas she was livestreaming on TikTok, in response to the state prosecutor’s workplace.
The influencer, Valeria Márquez, was working on the salon in Zapopan, a part of the metropolitan space of Guadalajara, and streaming to a few of her 113,000 followers on TikTok, when two males pulled up outdoors on a bike, Denis Rodríguez, a spokesman for the Jalisco State Prosecutor’s Workplace, mentioned. One of many males entered the salon carrying a masks, searching for Ms. Márquez.
“He requested her straight: ‘Are you Valeria?’” Mr. Rodríguez mentioned. She responded, “Sure.”
The person then pulled out a gun and shot her earlier than hopping on the motorcycle and fleeing.
Ms. Márquez’s TikTok account appeared to have been taken down on Wednesday, however a video of the killing circulating on-line, which was confirmed by the prosecutor’s workplace, confirmed her sitting in a chair on the salon, holding a pink stuffed pig in her lap, earlier than wanting away from the digital camera. A second later she clutches at her chest and abdomen earlier than slumping over in her chair. One other girl’s face is then seen earlier than the video cuts out.
When investigators arrived later, “she was nonetheless sitting within the chair, the place she was stunned, with that doll, the little pig, proper there in her arms,” Mr. Rodríguez mentioned.
The prosecutor’s workplace mentioned it didn’t have any suspects, however it was reviewing surveillance footage and brushing by means of her social media for clues as to whom the attackers could be. The lads, who visited the store earlier within the day saying they had been attempting to ship a present for Ms. Márquez, probably didn’t personally know her, as they needed to ask for her by identify, Mr. Rodríguez mentioned.
“They didn’t have a private relationship,” he mentioned. “He was merely her executioner.”
The prosecutor’s workplace mentioned that it was investigating the crime as a potential “femicide,” a kind of gender-based violence in opposition to ladies. Such assaults are sometimes unpunished in Mexico.
Ms. Márquez’s demise was the newest reminder of the rise in violence in opposition to ladies within the nation.
The killing occurred days after Yesenia Lara Gutiérrez, a mayoral candidate within the state of Veracruz, was gunned down together with three others throughout a marketing campaign march on Sunday — an assault that was also captured on a livestream.
A recording of that stream, which was posted on Ms. Gutiérrez’s Fb web page and was nonetheless on-line as of Wednesday night, reveals Ms. Gutiérrez shaking the palms of residents and marching along with her supporters by means of the streets, earlier than a collection of gunshots ring out. Moments later, a few of her supporters will be heard screaming, whereas others run from the scene, earlier than the digital camera goes darkish.
Mexico has enacted a variety of native and federal legal guidelines in recent times to fight gender-based violence in opposition to ladies, however the nation nonetheless has one of many highest charges of femicide on the planet.
The violence is the product of a “machismo” tradition, ingrained sexism and establishments that resist acknowledging their very own accountability for gender-based violence, mentioned Paulina García-Del Ethical, an affiliate professor of sociology on the College of Guelph.
“There’s nonetheless a way of entitlement amongst loads of males in Mexico — and elsewhere in Latin America and the world — they really feel entitled to ladies’s our bodies,” Dr. García-Del Ethical mentioned. “It’s confirmed to be very resilient and resistant to alter.”
A study in 2023 from a gaggle of lecturers in Mexico discovered that femicide has been rising within the nation for almost a decade, outpacing different violent crimes, with round 10 or 11 ladies murdered on daily basis.
In accordance with the United Nations, greater than 50,000 women had been murdered from 2001 to 2024, with lower than 5 p.c of the circumstances leading to convictions.
State actors typically fail to research, or after they do, they downplay the violence by specializing in gendered stereotypes, like what a feminine sufferer was carrying or the alternatives she could have made that led to her demise, Ms. García-Del Ethical mentioned. “Just about sufferer blaming,” she added.
After Ms. Márquez was shot, customers flooded her TikTok account with messages expressing shock and condolences. Some questioned whether or not the footage was actual. TikTok didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
It’s unclear whether or not the one who attacked Ms. Márquez knew that she was broadcasting stay, however, Ms. García-Del Ethical mentioned, “Any form of public feminicide desires to ship an announcement, whether or not it’s transmitted stay or not: That males can kill ladies with impunity.”
“Feminicidal violence in Mexico is so deep, and so broad, you aren’t essentially protected by advantage of being of wealthier socioeconomic standing, or being a politician or being even stay,” she added. “It doesn’t matter.”
McKinnon de Kuyper contributed reporting.
