The original content of Democracy Now! Headlines appears under the Creative
Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 License (United States). For more, including their other
shows and media, visit www.democracynow.org.
October 24, 2012

Lousiana Police Challenge Burn Victim's Claim of Hate Crime 
------------------------------------------------------------


 
Police in Louisiana are claiming an African-American woman badly injured
in what she called a racially motivated attack inflicted her wounds
herself. Twenty-year-old Sharmeka Moffitt reportedly told police she was
set on fire by three men who wrote the initials KKK and a racial slur on
her car. She suffered burns on more than half her body and is now
hospitalized in critical condition. But police now say Moffitt staged
the attack herself, and that her DNA was found on the bottle of lighter
fluid used to start the fire.

 

.