Photo Credit: Gabriel Salazar/Instagram
Gabriel Salazar was a TikTok star with over 2 million followers that had just turned 19 and days later perished in a fiery car crash along with 3 other people in the car. Around 1 in the morning on Sunday, he had been pulled over 100 miles outside of San Antonio before going in pursuit of the car. What happened after that was the “Chevrolet Camaro drove off the road, over-corrected, and traveled across the roadway, onto the west barrow ditch,” after a tire deflation device police put down failed.
The Texas Department of Public Safety said “The vehicle struck some trees, rolled several times, and the vehicle caught fire.” Salazar was pronounced dead on the spot as well as the other passengers, Jose Luis Jimenez-Mora, 41, Jose Molina-Lara, 23, and Sergio Espinoza-Flores, 36.
His family started a GoFundMe account to cover his final funeral expenses pulling in over $38,000 at the time of this post. The fundraising page read, “Gabriel loved his family and was always horsing around with [his] sister and little brother. He was always there with a big hug and smile, and his family will never forget those warm moments,” wrote organizer Chris Vasquez. “He was so funny with a quiet sense of humor and sarcasm. I cannot believe that I am sitting here writing this.”
“Words cannot express the heartbreak our entire community is feeling from the loss of our Gabriel,” Vasquez continued. “Your family and friends miss you.”
