It was another one of those Jussie Smollett-like "hate crimes" that sounded perfectly made up to any well-adjusted person, which probably explains why liberals fell for it, hook, line, and sinker.
A biracial woman in Madison, Wisconsin, told police officers back in June that she was attacked by four racist white men who looked like frat boys. The woman, Althea Bernstein, 18, claimed the four men pulled alongside her vehicle at a stoplight, called her a racial epithet, sprayed lighter fluid through her open window, and then lit the teenager on fire. It happened to be the same night that Black Lives Matter vandals tossed a molotov cocktail through a window at a nearby government building.
While police have ruled out any connection between Bernstein and the arson, police are now closing their exhaustive investigation into Bernstein's alleged hate crime after finding zero evidence to corroborate her story. In a statement, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Wisconsin, who also investigated Bernstein's claims alongside the FBI, said that "after reviewing all available evidence, authorities could not establish that the attack, as alleged by the complainant, had occurred."
Investigators say footage from that night shows Bernstein had her window rolled up as she drove in a different lane than the one she had told investigators she was driving in, and Bernstein's vehicle didn't stop at any stoplights where the attack was alleged to have occurred. Bernstein also turned over GPS evidence on her phone, and investigators established that Bernstein had texted a friend about the incident while Bernstein was still at her house.
Of course, we didn't need an expensive investigation into Bernstein's claims because Bernstein's claims were manifestly false. As Instapundit points out, Bernstein looks like Rachel Dolezal, not to say Bernstein isn't biracial but she is certainly not a person who would be targeted by a group of racist white men out to get a black person. But liberals are either gullible or simply can't pass up an opportunity to stoke racial divisions in the country no matter how preposterous the claims.
NFL Players Todd Gurley of the Atlanta Falcons and Oren Burks of the Green Bay Packers put Bernstein's name on their helmets as part of the NFL's Inspire Change program. Maybe Bernstein's fake hate crime will inspire change and the NFL will stop believing all the lies told to them by Black Lives Matter Marxists.
Bernstein was even invited on Good Morning America and none of their reporters raised any questions about the veracity of her claims.
"It's definitely a learning opportunity and I'm very, very hopeful that these men sort of see all the response and that they know that they hurt me and that this is something that is going to affect me for a while, and I really hope that they chose to improve themselves," Bernstein told Good Morning America.
Unfortunately, police are saying Bernstein will not be prosecuted for making false statements to investigators. It's bad enough when somebody makes false statements to police officers and those statements harm just one individual. But Bernstein's lies are magnitudes worse because they feed into racial divisions during a time of heightened racial tension in the U.S.
There may not be footage showing Bernstein was attacked by racist white men, but there is footage of two white sheriff's deputies being gunned down by a black man and black bystanders laughing as the two injured deputies crawl from their vehicle. Who knows how much Bernstein's lies and others like them have contributed to the violence in recent months.