Clive Police DepartmentA 42-year-old woman has been charged with attempted murder after intentionally hitting a teenage girl with her car. Why? Because she’s ‘a Mexican’.
Nicole Marie Poole Franklin – from Des Moines, Iowa – struck 14-year-old Natalia Miranda with her SUV at around 5.00pm on December 9, leaving the injured teen on the sidewalk as she drove off, according to court records.
Franklin was arrested the next day after police developed a vehicle profile matching her 1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee. While it was initially thought to be a hit-and-run, the woman revealed to officers it was a targeted attack, due to the fact she was Hispanic.
Check out the local news report below:
On December 20, Clive Police Department Chief Michael G. Venema released a statement on their Facebook page regarding the incident, explaining further information is being gathered for the Polk County Attorney’s office to assist with their prosecution.
The statement read:
Detectives interviewed her in the Polk County Jail, where she was being held on other charges. During the interview Franklin not only admitted to being the driver of the car that struck this girl, but also that she had done so intentionally.
Franklin told investigators that she ran the girl over because she was, in her words, ‘a Mexican’. She went on to make a number of derogatory statements about Latinos to the investigators.
KCRGMiranda, who was hospitalised for two days after suffering bruises and a concussion, told local TV news station KCCI that she remembers the vehicle coming towards her, but doesn’t recall being hit. ‘I was in the hospital and I tried moving, and I couldn’t get out of my bed. Sitting up was the worst pain I’ve ever felt,’ she said.
As the Des Moines Register reports, Franklin allegedly smoked methamphetamine prior to the attack. According to the arrest report, she’s being held on a $1 million bond with an attempted murder charge, along with theft, assault and substance charges.
KCRGCommenting on Franklin’s confession, Venema said:
Shocked would be an understatement. I’ve been in law enforcement for 35 years, and I get very used to people being a little bit callous or maybe leaving the scene of an accident and not caring about someone who’s been hurt if they did so unintentionally.
Members of the local community, including the Des Moines chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens, are calling for Franklin to be charged with a hate crime – authorities have yet to rule that out.
If you have a story you want to tell send it to UNILAD via [email protected]
After graduating from Glasgow Caledonian University with an NCTJ and BCTJ-accredited Multimedia Journalism degree, Cameron ventured into the world of print journalism at The National, while also working as a freelance film journalist on the side, becoming an accredited Rotten Tomatoes critic in the process. He’s now left his Scottish homelands and took up residence at UNILAD as a journalist.