Attack on 2nd Bosnian in St. Louis Sparks Hate Crime Probe

The FBI is helping St. Louis police investigate a possible hate crime after three black teenagers allegedly accused a white woman of being Bosnian before beating her unconscious.

The attack Friday on a 26-year-old Bosnian woman occurred in the same Bevo Mill neighborhood where a 32-year-old Bosnian man named Zemir Begic was killed last weekend by a group of hammer-wielding teenagers, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. Police are not investigating Begic’s death as a hate crime.

The woman, who was not identified, told police that three black teens tried to block her vehicle Friday as she was driving, pulling a gun on her and telling her to stop. One of the men allegedly struck the windshield with what appeared to be a crowbar and dragged the woman out of the vehicle. She said one of the men asked where she was from, and she told them she was European.

“You’re a [expletive] liar. You’re Bosnian. I should just kill you now,” Police Chief Sam Dotson said of the woman’s account, the Post-Dispatch reported.

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