An Iowa woman was charged with attempted murder after running over a 14-year-old girl because she thought the teenager was Mexican, the police said.

The woman, Nicole Marie Poole Franklin, 42, of Des Moines, told the police that she intentionally struck the girl with her vehicle on Dec. 9 because she believed that she was “a Mexican,’’ Chief Michael G. Venema of the Clive Police Department said in a news release Friday.

“She went on to make a number of derogatory statements about Latinos to the investigators,” Chief Venema said.

The episode took place in Clive, a city of about 17,000 residents about 10 miles west of Des Moines. The authorities said the girl was walking on the sidewalk on her way to Indian Hills Junior High School when “a vehicle left the roadway and ran the girl over,” the news release said.