Ugly incident yields light sentences

Shame on our court system for allowing a pair of thugs to escape jail time after yelling racial slurs and firing a shotgun at a pair of black Department of Public Works laborers trying to do their jobs.

Eric Arnaud, 22, and Christopher Roussel, 17, both of Amite River Road, had been looking at 50 years in prison for attempted murder and hate crimes after menacing a pair of city-parish workers mowing grass along Kendalwood Road in August 2007.

But last month State District Judge Chip Moore accepted the District Attorney’s reduced charges and sentenced Arnaud and Roussel to probation and a modest fine, and required them to apologize to their victims.

Their lawyers insisted Arnaud and Roussel simply showed poor judgment.

In July the pair must return to court and present their apology letters to the judge. Maybe they should have to apologize to the whole parish for reviving a racist heritage that should be long dead, but keeps rearing its ugly head in new and awful ways.