Wisconsin authorities are looking for four suspects who allegedly threw a lighter at the face of a biracial teen at a stoplight on Wednesday in an apparent hate crime.
18-year-old Althea Bernstein was behind the wheel at around 1 a.m. on a night of protests across Madison when she stopped at a red-light with her driver window down. Four white men approached her car and yelled racial slurs at her before spraying a lighter fluid at her face and throwing a lighter at her.
“My neck caught on fire and I tried to put it out, but I brushed it up onto my face,” Bernstein said. “I got it out and then I just blasted through the red light. I just felt like I needed to get away.”
Mayor Rhodes-Conway described the incident as disturbing, premeditated against people of color.
