Yarely Ashley Hermosillo, a social media personality whose videos attract thousands of followers, was fatally shot in Arizona last week when the sport utility vehicle in which she was a passenger pulled up next to a man who fired a gun while arguing with another driver, the police said.
Ms. Hermosillo, 27, her son, 4, and her mother were in an S.U.V. driven by her partner just before midnight on Friday in Glendale, a city northwest of Phoenix. As they pulled up in the left lane at a light, they came to a stop next to drivers in the center and right lanes who were arguing, the Glendale Police Department said.
During the “verbal altercation,” the driver in the center lane, Jesus Dousten, 33, pulled out a handgun, according to a police affidavit filed in Maryvale Justice Court in Maricopa County. He held the weapon across his body pointing to the left, while looking toward the right at the driver whom he was confronting, the document said.
“You want some of this?” Mr. Dousten yelled, according to the affidavit.
Mr. Dousten then fired a single shot that hit Ms. Hermosillo’s car, breaking the window of the front passenger seat where she was sitting, and striking her in the face, it said.
He “fired a shot in a random direction,” the police said in an email obtained on Wednesday. “Tragically, that bullet struck a passenger in an uninvolved vehicle.”
“Why the suspect chose to fire the weapon remains unknown,” the police said. “It did not appear as if the suspect had intended to strike Yarely with the firearm,” said Officer Moroni Mendez in a telephone interview on Wednesday. “It did not appear as if he was trying to hit his intended target. It is unknown. He did not say anything to that effect.”
Ms. Hermosillo’s partner drove her to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead, the police said. Mr. Dousten was arrested on Saturday and charged with second-degree murder, assault and weapons charges, the affidavit said.
He was being held in lieu of $1 million bond, the police said. It was not immediately clear on Wednesday whether Mr. Dousten had a lawyer.
The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office did not immediately reply to an email.
Ms. Hermosillo was known as a lifestyle personality with about 300,000 followers tracking her recipes, product recommendations and shopping videos on TikTok, Facebook and Instagram. Her cooking videos, mostly of Mexican-inspired cuisine, were the most popular, each racking up tens of thousands of views.
A fund-raiser set up by her family said that they and her friends were devastated. “Yarely’s greatest joy in life was being a mother, and she poured her heart into caring for her little boy,” it said. They did not immediately reply to a message on Wednesday.