Earlier this month, Joe Rickey Hundley, an executive with defense contractor AGC, got upset at a toddler crying next to him. So what did he do? He yelled at his mother to "shut that n*** baby up" and slapped the little boy across the face. According to the boy's mom, Hundley was drunk to boot. He was brought up on federal assault charges, and this past weekend AGC fired him. Read more about this at Luckydog's diary.
I ran the simple assault charge Hundley faces through the Sentencing Guidelines Calculator. He faces as much as 10 months under the guidelines, though there's a chance that Hundley could get off with as little as probation. Sorry, but that doesn't sit well with me. It would be a pretty big stretch to call this a hate crime--all indications are that he used the N-word in the heat of the moment. But you still have a case of someone hauling off and hitting a child in public. That's something no civilized society should tolerate, or even appear to tolerate.
Hundley needs to go to prison. And preferably for the 10 months max he faces under sentencing guidelines.