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IN HOSPITAL: Sharmeka Moffitt (Image: ionenewsone.files.wordpress.com)

 Officials are waiting for more facts to come to light before drawing any conclusions about what happened  

A 20-year-old black woman said she was set on fire by three men who wrote the initials KKK and a racial slur on her car in northeastern Louisiana, police said.

Officers found Sharmeka Moffitt with burns on more than half of her body when they responded to her emergency call Sunday night, said Louisiana State Police spokeswoman Lt. Julie Lewis.

The FBI is investigating the attack as a possible hate crime, but no arrests had been made as of late Monday, Lewis said.

She said Moffitt was in critical condition at a hospital and that some of her injuries were third-degree burns.

Moffitt told police the men doused her in a flammable liquid and set her on fire at a park in Winnsboro, a town in Franklin Parish.

Lewis said she extinguished the fire using water from a spigot before a police officer arrived.

Officers found the letters KKK — an apparent reference to the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan — and a racial slur smeared in a paste-like substance on the hood of her car, Lewis said.

On the emergency call, Moffitt described her attackers as three men wearing white hoods or hats, Lewis said. She later told a Winnsboro Police officer who responded to the call that the men were wearing white hoodies.

She was unable to say what race her attackers were.

The officer found no suspects or vehicles at Civitan Park where the attack allegedly happened, and the park has no surveillance cameras, Lewis said.

She said the state crime lab was analyzing several pieces of evidence.

Franklin Sheriff Kevin Cobb called it “a horrific event” and said authorities would “follow the facts and seek justice”. 

Otis Chisley, the president of the local branch of the NAACP, a civil rights group, said he had been in touch with Moffitt’s distraught family.

He said he was waiting for more facts to come to light before drawing any conclusions about what happened and that "everyone wants to move with caution".

Regardless of the investigation’s outcome, though, Chisley said, racism and KKK activity remain a fact of life in the state. “It’s prevalent throughout Louisiana,” he said. “It’s hidden but it exists.” 

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Comments

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Tue May 21 07:33:32 SAST 2013 ::

Oct 23, 2012

mose

if found they should be set on fire.
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Oct 23, 2012

Voetzek

There was nothing wrong with KKK because even us black are rasists, some petty things just have to be ignored that woman might have confronted them
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Oct 23, 2012

Mrazane

How can people can live with so much hatred?! Hatred is such a heavy burden to carry on a daily basis. The world is made up of different races and that will never change. I just wish we could respect each other's humanity rather than breed hatred on the basis of race, tribe and gender.

Get well my sister!
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Oct 23, 2012

Mrazane

Eish Mbondo I hear you my brother...I do believe that we have to start somewhere, I have chosen to start with myself, it is not to say I am perfect and do not carry any prejudice, I have chosen to deal with it head on and challenge myself everytime I am confronted with a situation am I responding on the basis of a prejudicial stereotype I hold or am I responding to the issue and facts at hand.

If you go to the IOL website and see the comments there it breaks my heart to see the intense hatred that white people have towards black people and yet blacks are willing to share the country with them, it is clear that reconciliation in this country was one sided, the wronged were the ones extending a hand of reconciliation, our white fellow countrymen must look in the mirror and start changing.


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Oct 23, 2012

The-Vince

@Mrazane thats True: realy I don't see any point in hating, its just draining, emotionaly, physicaly, and mentaly, its just a waste of time and energy. There is no way in the face of the earth you going to wake up and find that a certain race you hate with passion has disappeared off the face of the earth, that will never happened, Hitler tried to iradicate Jews but he coulnd not, apartheid was there and went without no black man disappearing to the thinnest air, you can hate a white person, you can hate a black person as much as you feel you need to but at the end of the day your hatred wont change nothing in this world, at the end you will go 6ix feet under with your hatred and you will be forgotten, you hating me wont make me wake up the next day looking like you. you will still see many faces that are of my color, so hang yourself for it then to escape the misery of seeing one thing you ditest with your whole being every day.
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Oct 23, 2012

RobinHH

Mbondo: With respect, that is completely unfounded racist hate-speech. You need help Sir. What possible constructive use could such a hate-filled rant have?
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Oct 23, 2012

RobinHH

Voetzek: "There was nothing wrong with KKK because even us black are rasists," AN ABSURD POSITION, SIR. Racism in any form is disgusting and counter-productive in the extreme.
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Oct 23, 2012

RobinHH

mbondo: I will not dignify that hate-speech with a rational response.
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Oct 23, 2012

Papage

racist in which ever way is wrong and must be killed and buried. Speedy recovery Sister, I thought it only happens here in Mzanzi, but is like spreading now, it must be stoped, look how ugly Football in Europe look now. It is bad and i now lose interest in watching football. Black and White just hate each other for no reasons, i just wonder what really went wrong. Maybe Mr Mandela must come and address us all, just to remind us that we are all equal and human
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Oct 23, 2012

RobinHH

Papage: Hear hear.
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