In Iowa, a 42-year-old woman was charged with attempted murder after running over a teenage girl because she “was a Mexican,” CNN reports.
On Dec. 9, Des Moines resident Nicole Marie Poole Franklin intentionally hit a 14-year-old Latina girl, whose name is being withheld because she is a minor, while she was walking to a middle school basketball game in Clive, Iowa. Poole Franklin drove off and left the girl at the scene; she woke up later amid snow.
“I don’t remember the impact. I just remember the car coming toward me,” the girl, who returned to school a week after the incident, told CNN affiliate KCCI-TV. “I didn’t do anything. I’m just a girl just walking to a basketball game.”
During an interview with detectives, Poole Franklin disclosed that she hit the girl because she “was a Mexican.” Police said the woman also “made a series of derogatory statements about Latinos.”
Earlier that same day, the woman was charged for assault in a separate racial incident against a store clerk and customers at a West Des Moines convenience store.
She now also faces an attempted murder charge for the hit-and-run. The case is being investigated to determine if it was a hate crime.
“I want to say in the strongest terms possible that there is no place in our community, or any community for that matter, for this type of hatred or violence,” Clive Police Chief Michael Venema said, according to The Hill. “We are committed to stand by and support this family and work diligently with them to seek justice.”
Poole Franklin is being held on $1 million bond and is scheduled to appear in court on Dec. 30.