Driver who ran over girl she thought was 'a Mexican' charged in second hit-and-run

Iowa woman also charged with second hate crime on same day

Nicole Franklin is charged with three crimes that all took place on 9 December (AP)

An Iowa woman who said she ran over a girl because she thought she was “a Mexican” was charged on Monday in another hit-and-run involving a child, as well as in a separate hate crime – three attacks that the police said happened in a little more than an hour.

In an episode that gained national attention, the woman, Nicole Marie Poole Franklin, was charged after she told the police she ran over a 14-year-old girl because she thought she was “a Mexican.”

That case was one of three episodes that unfolded on 9 December, according to the authorities.

On Monday, she was charged with attempted murder in a separate hit-and-run case involving a 12-year-old boy, authorities said.

In that case, Franklin, 42, struck the boy, who was walking on the sidewalk of a Des Moines, Iowa, apartment complex with her Jeep Cherokee just before 4pm local time, police said.

Witnesses told the police that the SUV accelerated immediately before the crash, which officials said left the boy with minor injuries. Franklin was charged with attempted murder in that case.

Sergeant Paul J Parizek, a Des Moines Police Department spokesman, said on Monday night that Franklin did not make any statements to investigators about striking the boy, so they could not confirm her motive in that case.

At 4:45pm, Franklin yelled racial epithets at a Conoco convenience store clerk and a customer in West Des Moines, according to a police report.

On Monday, police announced that Franklin had been charged with a hate crime for the tirade, in addition to public intoxication and a shoplifting charge of fifth-degree theft. The items she took were valued at $6.80 and included a bag of peanuts, an ice cream cone and a beef jerky stick, according to a police report.

Then, just before 5pm, Franklin drove her vehicle into a 14-year-old girl who was walking on the sidewalk to a junior high school in the Des Moines suburb of Clive, police there said.

The girl sustained a concussion and bruises that required her to be hospitalised, according to the television station KCCI, which interviewed the victim, who was later discharged.

Franklin was charged with attempted murder in that case. She also made derogatory comments about Latinos to investigators, said Michael Venema, the police chief in Clive.

It was not immediately clear if Franklin had a lawyer.

Investigators used security camera footage from the first hit-and-run to identify Franklin, the chief said.

The New York Times