A popular 17-year-old TikTok user was brutally murdered in a shooting in the parking lot of a Los Angeles shopping mall.
CBS News was first to report the shooting, which took place around 7:30 p.m. Saturday outside Los Cerritos Center in Los Angeles County. Police arrived to find a woman unresponsive inside of a vehicle.
She was later pronounced dead because of a gunshot wound to the chest. The victim was identified as 17-year-old Nahsiyah Turner, who was known to her TikTok fans as Siyah.
There are few details about the shooting, which remains under investigation. Police shared a statement to The Griffin Gazette, a Los Alamitos High School student paper.
"Deputies from the Cerritos station responded to the parking lot of the Cerritos mall in regards to a gunshot victim call,” Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office Lieutenant Steve DeJong said.
"This investigation is going to go on for a while," he added. "As far as the context and investigation, I can’t elaborate."
The manager of a nearby Chipotle, Jeremy Paguia, said that he saw "commotion" in the parking lot and a group of kids "screaming." A heavy police response ensued, and part of the mall was shut down.
“There was a lady passed out and a full car of boys and one girl, all screaming,” Paguia said. "It was a girl unconscious in her front seat. No pulse. A nurse came by and started doing CPR for a good 10 minutes," he added.
Turner had accumulated a following of 300,000 on TikTok with her dance videos. She had posted her last video only days before she was killed.
Her fans paid tribute in the comments and also held an outdoor memorial ceremony to show their love for the slain influencer.
This is at least the second time in almost a year that the mall has been the site of a fatal shooting. In April of 2024, police shot and killed a man who pulled out a gun in the parking lot.
A local high school sophomore told The Griffin Gazette the mall usually feels safe, during the day.
“That’s probably the mall that I go to the most with my friends and my mom. You don’t usually think that would happen, so you feel safe. At night, it’s a little more scary,” the student said.
