By Wesley Harris
The Office of the Louisiana Attorney General and others are investigating disturbing text messages telling recipients to be prepared to be picked up by “slaves” or “slave catchers” and transported to a plantation to pick cotton.
Attorney General Liz Murrill said, “I have been made aware of racist and vile spam text messages individuals have received throughout Louisiana. I have directed the Louisiana Bureau of Investigation to fully investigate the origins of these disgusting texts that only intend to divide us.”
Murrill urged anyone who received a text not to respond to it but to contact her office at (800) 351-4889.
Murrill’s office has joined federal, state, and local authorities in investigating the offensive messages sent to phones over several days last week. Most of the recipients were in the South but the texts were also received in Ohio, Missouri, Michigan, and California.
Lincoln Parish Sheriff Stephen Williams said, “We have received multiple complaints from Lincoln Parish residents about receiving these messages. These cases are being investigated both locally and on a national level.”
Williams said anyone receiving such messages should report them to Attorney General Murrill’s office.
Students as young as middle schoolers have received the texts, according to news services.
Students at some major universities, including Clemson in South Carolina and the University of Alabama, said they received the messages. The Clemson Police Department said it been notified of “deplorable racially motivated text and email messages” and encouraged anyone who received one to report it.
Fisk University, a historically black university in Nashville, issued a statement calling the messages targeting some of its students “deeply unsettling.” It assured students the texts likely were from bots or malicious actors with “no real intentions or credibility.”
TextNow, a free phone and text service, said in a statement that it had “learned that one or more of our accounts may have been used to send text messages in violation of our terms of service,” adding it shut down the accounts as soon as it became aware of the texts.
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