BATON ROUGE, La. — A wave of racist messages is sounding alarms here in Louisiana and across the country.
The emails and text messages sent to people in more than two dozen states contain almost identical language, telling the recipient they had been "selected for cotton picking."
Some instruct the recipient to show up at the nearest plantation.
Devereaux Adams, a college student in Atlanta said he felt "afraid and hurt" when he received the text.
“I have multiple friends that got the same exact message, same exact tone and some, they don’t even know how these people got their first and last name,” Adams said. “It said we know where you live, so it’s like whoa, this is not a prank, it’s an actual threat.”
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill also received the message.
“They are terrible, racist, ugly emails,” Murrill said. “I received one personally in my personal email account this morning. I saw they were kind of bubbling up through people’s text messages.”
Murrill said state and federal cyber investigators have now traced the messages to an email server in eastern Europe.
“The best that we can find right now is that the server, started, originated in Poland. It’s an encrypted email server and it’s pushing emails out. That doesn’t mean the person is in Poland that’s doing it, and they probably aren’t.”
Louisiana Congressman Troy Carter called the timing of the messages, right after a contentious election, suspicious.
“It certainly inflames an already sensitive electorate, regardless of what side of the election you may have been on, at a time when quite frankly we want to cool the flames,” Carter said.
Carter is calling on the Department of Homeland Security to investigate.
“Any group or groups that seeks to intimidate, to frighten, or single out individuals because of their race, religion, or faith is terrorism,” Carter said.
Authorities are urging people not to click on the message and to delete it.
[WATCH] FBI, Louisiana AG, investigate mass racist text messages
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