TikTok star Gabriel Salazar, who had more than 2.2 million followers on the social media platform, is dead following a fiery crash in Texas that killed three other people, authorities said.
At about 1:20 a.m. Sunday, a Crystal City police officer pulled over the car Salazar, 19, was driving in Zavala County, about 100 miles outside of San Antonio, according to the Zavala County Sheriff’s Office. It's not clear why the vehicle was stopped.
The officer then reported he was in pursuit of the car, a white Chevy Camaro driving on Highway 83.
A deputy joined the pursuit and tried to deploy a tire deflation device that was unsuccessful, according to the sheriff's office.
During the chase, the "Chevrolet Camaro drove off the road, over-corrected, and traveled across the roadway, onto the west barrow ditch," according to the Texas Department of Public Safety, which is leading the investigation into the crash. "The vehicle struck some trees, rolled several times, and the vehicle caught fire." Photos from the scene show the car engulfed in flames.
Salazar, who made his name on TikTok under the handle "gabenotbabe" and boasted a following of more than 800,000 on Instagram, was pronounced dead at the scene, officials said.
Jose Luis Jimenez-Mora, 41, Jose Molina-Lara, 23, and Sergio Espinoza-Flores, 36, were also killed. The three passengers were Mexican nationals, according to the public safety department.
Salazar was a San Antonio resident.
In his last Instagram post, he is posing in front of a white Chevy Camaro.
