An online content creator was killed in Arizona on Friday when a gunman fired in a random direction during an argument between the drivers of two other vehicles, Glendale police said.
Yarely Ashley Hermosillo, 27, who described herself as a reels creator online and has 144,000 followers on Instagram, was not the target of the gunfire at around 11:45 p.m., police said.
She was a passenger in a vehicle and was struck after a driver “fired a shot in a random direction” after people in two cars exchanged words on eastbound Camelback Road, police said.
Jesus Preciado Dousten, 33, was arrested Saturday and is charged with second-degree murder, aggravated assault, misconduct involving weapons and endangerment.
Police said in an affidavit that Dousten, driving a GMC pickup, pulled out a black handgun, said “You want some of this?” in Spanish during the argument and fired.
Hermosillo was shot in the right eye, police wrote in the document. She was pronounced dead at 1 a.m. Saturday, police said.
Witnesses reported that Dousten seemed obviously intoxicated, police said in the report.
Family members tearfully recalled the pain of losing a loved one who was shot in front of them.
“I will never forget my mom’s screams when I arrived at the hospital,” sister Cryshan Lopez said at a news conference Wednesday.
Hermosillo was the mother of a 3-year-old son, and her social media career, which involved cooking, was starting to take off, her family said.
“She was full of dreams, plans and goals for her future — all of which were taken from her in such a cruel and senseless way,” Lopez said. “Our family is heartbroken beyond words.”
Dousten has what police described in a report as an extensive criminal history, including a road-rage incident in Phoenix in June in which he was accused of punching another driver in the face.
He has 2016 and 2024 convictions for attempted theft of means of transportation, a 2022 conviction of unlawful flight from law enforcement and a 2022 conviction of resisting arrest and criminal trespass, according to court documents.
He was being held in lieu of $1 million bail, police said. Online court records did not list an attorney for him Wednesday evening.
Police said that nothing that occurred in the argument between drivers was itself criminal and that it was “a brief verbal exchange.”
“Why the suspect chose to fire the weapon remains unknown,” police spokesman Jose Miguel Santiago said.
Jean Lee and Insiya Gandhi contributed.
