oooooops, i was only joking!

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St. Louis Bosnian woman who claimed hate crime charged with making false report

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ST. LOUIS • A Bosnian immigrant has been charged with making a false police report after claiming three black teenagers threatened to kill her in the Bevo Mill neighborhood because of her race. Police say surveillance video from a nearby business shows Seherzada Dzanic, 26, of the 4400 block of Gannett Street, get out of her own car and lie in the street shortly before a passing driver found her on Dec. 5. At the time, Dzanic told police three black men in their late teens to early 20s had walked in front of her vehicle at about 5:25 a.m. along the 4600 block of Landsdowne Avenue. She told police one of the men pulled a gun on her when she tried to pass them, then opened her passenger door and went through her purse. She also told police one of the men pushed her to the ground and had asked where she was from. She said she told them she was European. “You’re a (expletive) liar. You’re Bosnian. I should just kill you now,” she claimed they told her, according to an account at the time by Chief Sam Dotson. She said she was kicked and lost consciousness. Dzanic refused medical treatment at the scene, police said. The report heightened tension in a St. Louis Bosnian community, already rocked by a hammer killing of a Bosnian man five days earlier. Dotson asked the FBI to join the Dzanic investigation to determine if this would be classified as a hate crime. City police detectives searching for clues to the attackers' identity found the video that disputed her account. In the video, the woman can be seen driving along the street in the opposite direction that she told police, then doing a U-turn, stopping, getting out and lying on the street until the passing motorist finds her, according to a police source. When confronted with the evidence, Dzanic told police she made up the story because she was suffering from "emotional issues," the source said. Filing a false police report is a misdemeanor. She has been booked and released pending a warrant for her arrest, the source said. The alleged attack occurred in the same week that a group of black and Hispanic teens beat Zemir Begic, a Bosnian, to death with a hammer. That led many in the community to take to the streets chanting, "Bosnian Lives Matter." Police said they have no evidence to believe Begic was targeted because of his race, although many in the community suspect it. Robert Joseph Mitchell, 17, was charged with first-degree murder and armed criminal action in Begic's death. Two other suspects, one 15 and two 16, are in custody, and authorities are seeking to have them certified as adults in the crime.

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