Althea Bernstein, a Black woman in Madison, Wisconsin, has sustained second- and third-degree burns after she was allegedly set on fire early Wednesday morning by white men yelling racial slurs.
A police incident report says the assailants used a spray bottle to spray lighter fluid on her face.
Bernstein says the men who attacked her “looked like classic Wisconsin frat boys … Two of them were wearing all black, and then the other two were wearing jeans and a floral shirt.”
The attack occurred as Black Lives Matter protests were winding down in Madison, though Bernstein had not been participating in the event.
A Madison police spokesman confirmed that Bernstein had called police and had taken a statement Thursday morning.