A Louisiana judge has resigned weeks after a video showed her and others using racial slurs following the arrest of an attempted car burglary suspect.
Michelle Odinet resigned from her seat on the Lafayette City Court on Friday, claiming responsibility for the comments made in the video, in which comments can be heard but did not show who was speaking.
In the video people appear to be watching surveillance footage of the incident.
Odinet apologized and said she’d been “given a sedative,” according to CNN affiliate KATC. She had no “recollection of the video and the disturbing language used during it,” she said.”The (burglary) shook me to my core and my mental state was fragile,” she told the station. “I was a wreck and am still unable to sleep. I was given a sedative at the time of the video.”
The resignation followed calls from Gov. John Bel Edwards, the local chapter of the NAACP and the the Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus for Odinet to step down. She initially took an unpaid leave of absence.
“I am sorry for the pain that I have caused my community and ask for your forgiveness, as my words did not foster the public’s confidence and integrity for the judiciary,” Odinet wrote in her resignation letter.
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