7-Year-Old Drug Dealer Shocks Police: Mom Arrested

A 7-year-old training to be a drug dealer — thanks Mom — has been rescued and her mother taken into custody.

Police allege that 41-year-old Silvia Tijerina used her 7-year-old daughter for drug transactions. Product of choice: cocaine.

KBTX reports that an undercover officer filmed the transaction with the mother-daughter duo in Waller County, “watching with surprise as the little girl deftly collected the cash and held bills to the light to check for counterfeits.”

“It angered me when I saw the video,” said Waller County District Attorney Elton Mathis. “For a mother to use her child in the drug culture this way is just totally unacceptable.”

Apparently, dear old Mom, police allege, is so prolific at drug dealing that she’s even forged a nickname — “La Pantera” or “the panther,” notes KHOU.

The reports indicate that La Pantera sold cocaine on two occasions to an undercover officer at the El Taconaso Bar and in a McDonald’s parking lot.

“It’s unimaginable that a mother would place a child in this situation,” said Capt. Brian Cantrell in comments to KHOU. “It’s almost like the mother is training the small child how to be a drug dealer.”

Police decided to cut the investigation short when the 7-year-old drug dealer was utilized in a transaction earlier this month. The thinking was that for the safety of the child, they couldn’t afford to wait. Tijerina, however, maintains her innocence.

“It’s very hard to decipher,” James Rivera, her attorney, said in comments to KHOU. “There’s a young child with her. I don’t know what they’re exchanging.”

(Probably not the defense we would go with, but innocent until proven guilty, right?)

As for the 7-year-old drug dealer’s fate, she is, thankfully, out of her mother’s care and has been placed with family. Tijerina’s other three children live with their biological father for undisclosed reasons.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the first accusation of criminals enlisting their children in the execution of crimes.

There have been numerous cases over the years where an adult has encouraged and coerced the criminal behavior of a child.

One such example can be seen in the film An American Crime — also, The Girl Next Door, which covers the same case — in which a woman enlisted her sons in the brutal beatings and murder of a teenage girl.

Do you think criminals such as these — or anyone who would create a 7-year-old drug dealer out of their daughter — deserve to be sterilized with parental rights to existing children revoked? Share your thoughts in our comments section.