Sharmeka Moffitt, Louisiana Woman, Set [herself] on Fire and Confronted With ‘KKK’ Slur in Race-Related Attack (HOAX)
A Louisiana woman was the victim of a horrific attack during which she was reportedly set on fire and had her car defiled with the letters “KKK,” police reported Monday.
Sharmeka Moffitt, a 20-year-old African-American woman, made an emergency call to police on Sunday night claiming three men wearing white hoods or hats attacked her, doused her with flammable liquid and set her on fire at a park in Winnsboro, La., CBS News reports. Moffitt, who said she was unable to identify the race of her attackers, was able to extinguish the fire with a water spigot before police arrived.
Update: Police now believe Moffitt’s story was fabricated, The News Star reports. Scroll for additional information.
Officers found the letters “KKK,” an apparent reference to the Ku Klux Klan, written on the hood of her car, according to CBS News. “KKK” was smeared on her hood in a paste-like substance.
Franklin Parish Sheriff Kevin Cobb confirmed that “KKK” was written on the hood of Moffitt’s car with a racial slur underneath, WMBF News reports.
Moffitt is currently in critical condition at LSU Medical Center in Shreveport, according to the station. “Both of her arms, and they are third degree burns, down her chest and legs - one. Basically her arms are real bad,” her mother, Edna, told the media. Edna also denied initial reports that claimed her daughter was wearing an Obama T-shirt at the time of the attack.
Police currently have no suspects or motives in the attack, which occurred while Moffitt was walking on a paved trail in Civitan Park on Sunday at about 8 p.m., according to The News Star. Authorities do not know if the attack was planned or random but called the racial connotations “unsettling.”
‘My hope is we’ll all stand together while we determine the facts,’ Cobb told The News Star. ‘I’m asking the community to trust us to do the right thing.”
More details at Huffington Post.
It seems that “racial/ethnic/homophobic slurs scratched on the victim’s body and/or belongings” is a particular characteristic of a hoax that is not usually found in real hate crimes, which also do not get the same media attention. It’s horrific that this woman injured herself so severely, what was going on in her life that she felt compelled to do this to herself?
Whenever I hear about “slurs scratched/scrawled on the victim” it just screams HOAX.
