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Amy SilversteinOctober 23, 2012 10:17
Sharmeka Moffitt, young black woman from Louisiana, set on fire in possible hate crime
Sharmeka Moffitt, 20, is in the hospital after attackers in Louisiana set her on fire.
Sharmeka Moffitt, 20, is in the hospital after attackers in Louisiana set her on fire.
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Members of the Fraternal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan march in Tennessee. The number of hate groups in the US has risen for the third consecutive year. (Spencer Platt/AFP/Getty Images)
Sharmeka Moffitt, a 20-year-old black woman, told police that she was walking in a Louisiana park when three men wearing white hoodies doused her in flammable liquid and set her on fire. Police later found the letters KKK written on the hood of her car, the Associated Press reported. The FBI is investigating the attack as a possible hate crime.
But police had few leads and no suspects late Monday. Moffitt meanwhile was "clinging to life" at the LSU Health Sciences Center in Shreveport, with extensive burns below her neck, chest, back and calves, The News Star reported.
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Moffitt has surgery scheduled for today, KSLA reported. Third-degree burns cover over 60 percent of her body, UPI reported.
At a news conference today, her mother said Sharmeka has never been threatened. "I have no idea who did it," Edna Moffitt said, according to UPI. "I want them to pay for what they did to her.
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/united-states/121023/sharmeka-moffitt-young-black-woman-louisiana-set
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