Last Thursday, three bouncers from New Orleans proved that you can still get away with murder in the good ol’ US of A.

Of course the victim “has” to be a minority and the perpetrator “has” to be white, but nevertheless, it seems it’s still possible to kill someone in the South and not serve any time. Arthur Irons walked out of a Louisiana courtroom last week after a jury deliberated for less than an hour, without even a slap on the wrist.

Three years ago, Irons and two other bouncers killed Levon Jones, a young black student from Georgia, on videotape in front of a crowd of witnesses. Jones was denied entrance to Razoo, a bar on Bourbon Street, because his hoodie supposedly violated the unlisted and undocumented dress code. All of his white friends dressed casually as well, but were allowed in. At some point while arguing about this, Irons shoved Jones and — eyewitness accounts differ — Jones may have taken a swing at the bouncer.

I think all of us know that dress codes are simply an excuse for doormen to refuse entry to people they don’t want in the bar. And on Bourbon Street it’s common practice that if you have some form of clothing covering at least one part of your body, you’re in. This is, after all, the city of bead-tossing, boob-flashing Mardi Gras; dress codes don’t exist in this “sin city.” The staff was dressed in T-shirts that night, but for some reason a hoodie wasn’t cool.

Jones was knocked to the ground and Irons put him in a choke hold. The 300-pound bouncer put all of his weight on the young student, sometimes using his head to prop his fat self up, and continued to choke him until police arrived 14 minutes later. Security cameras, as well as one of Jones’ friends, captured all of this on tape. When a police officer finally arrived on the scene, he handcuffed the now lifeless body (after asking if the bouncers wanted to do the honors themselves) and left Jones facedown in the street until paramedics arrived.

The Orleans Parish (Louisiana has parishes instead of counties) coroner determined that the cause of death was asphyxiation. The 14-minute chokehold had crushed Jones’ windpipe.

So a bouncer acts like a jerk, then gets in a fight with the guy he was a jerk to, and as a result someone dies. I have a pretty limited understanding of Louisiana state law, but it seems to me that this fits the definition of homicide. Whether or not Irons intended to kill Jones is irrelevant; his actions caused Jones’ death.

Somehow, Iron’s attorney managed to get the trial moved from Orleans Parish where black people comprise 67 percent of the population, to Calcasieu Parish, where the population is 73 percent white. Somehow, the defense team managed to get a jury with only one black member.

And somehow these people decided to acquit Irons, despite the video footage, eyewitness accounts and testimony from the coroner, not to mention the fact that Irons admitted to applying the chokehold for the 14 minutes.

I’m not saying that Irons and the other bouncers are racist. Their decision to refuse entry to a black kid in a hoodie (who looks like a really nice guy from pictures, not a thug) would lead me to believe they were, but let’s give them the benefit of the doubt.

What really troubles me is, would this have happened if Jones was a middle class white kid? Would the bouncers (thugs) have gotten away with murder then? Wouldn’t we be in an uproar if some bouncers in Pioneer Square killed a nice white kid from the UW, just because he made the mistake of losing his temper when he thought he was being discriminated against?

Emmett Till was another black kid who was murdered in Louisiana for whistling at a white woman. His two killers were acquitted on all counts as well. And like these bouncer thugs, they were guilty (Till’s killers admitted the murder and details of the crime after the trial in an interview with Time). I guess some things just don’t change.

I’ll bet you hadn’t even heard of Levon Jones or his killers who got away with murder. I wouldn’t have if my friend from New Orleans hadn’t told me. The Seattle Times ran a story after his death and the P-I ran one after the trial verdict.

Two stories.

The black community in Louisiana and the rest of the south is taking to the streets because of this; maybe it’s time that we opened our eyes and joined them.

[Reach columnist Jeremiah Rygus at opinion@thedaily.washington.edu.]