NEW ORLEANS -- 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 Monday.
Officers found
Sharmeka Moffitt with burns on more than half of her body when they
responded to her 911 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 Ku Klux Klan - and a racial slur smeared in a paste-like substance
on the hood of her car, Lewis said.
On the 911 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, 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."
Associated Press