A black teenage woman attacked by a group of white racist men with lighter fluid and flame, now suffers second degree burn

Black Lives Matter News

     An 18 year old teen age woman claims that she was attacked with lighter fluids and flame on the early morning of June 24 by a group of white men  yelling racial slurs.  She sustained second- and third degree burns.

    Althea Bernstein works as an EMT while studying to become a paramedic and firefighter. She says she was on her way to her brother's house at 1 AM Wednesday when she reached a stoplight on Gorham street near  state street in downtown Madison.  She couldn't recall which intersection it was.

    " I was listening to some music in a stoplight and then all of a sudden I heard someone tell the N-word very loud," she said in an interview on Wednesday.  "I turned my head to look and somebody's throwing lighter fluid on me.  An then they threw a lighter at me, and my neck caught on fire and I tried to put it out, but I brushed it up onto my face.  I got it out and then I just blasted through the red light... I just felt like I needed to get away.  So I drove through the red light and just kept driving until I got to my brother and Middleton.'

    A police incident report says that the assailant used spray bottle to spray lighter fluid on her face.  Althea also stated that her assailants appeared to be intoxicated and looked the typical "Wisconsin frat boys."