Snapchat amidst another crime lawsuit

17-year-old Anthony Mendoza in Chicago has been charged with first-degree murder in connection with the death of 16-year-old Christian Bandemer , a crime for which, he allegedly confessed on Snapchat.

According to prosecutors, Anthony, Christian, and Christian's cousin were loading and unloading a gun when the cousin left the room to smoke a cigarette and heard the weapon go off. The cousin, who remains unnamed in news reports, ran back into the house and found Christian bleeding from the chest. Anthony fled and tried to hide the gun in the grass in front of an abandoned house and then returned to the scene.

Reports in the Chicago Tribune say that when police arrived, Anthony was placed in the back of a police car to be transported, and sent a Snapchat where he said, “I killed Chris and now I'm going to kill myself.”

This is not the first time Snapchat is finding itself embroiled in some crime sequence. The self-destructing messaging app is currently facing a lawsuit related to a teenage driver who caused a horrific car crash and left a man with traumatic brain injuries after reaching over 100 miles per hour while using Snapchat's speed filter feature.

The live-streaming app Periscope was also at the receiving end of severe criticism after a teenager allegedly streamed her friend's sexual assault on the platform this April.

Anthony's bail was set at $250,000, and police are continuing to investigate the incident. Additionally, a GoFundMe page has been created to support Christian's family, and they hope that the tragedy will bring awareness to gun violence. According to the Brady Campaign, a gun safety organization, every day, 48 children and teens are shot in "murders, assaults, suicides & suicide attempts, unintentional shootings, and police intervention."