The stories last week that vandals had destroyed windows at the Southern Cultural Heritage Center to the tune of about $800 and, separately, that a mural at City Front had been defaced are shameful.

And shame on the perpetrators who simply were looking for a “thrill.” They threw rocks through windows at the former gymnasium on Clay Street and scratched a name on one of the paintings that make up the Riverfront Murals.

The 32 murals, painted at a cost of about $15,000 each, and the SCHC, which formerly was a Sisters of Mercy convent and school and today is a center for art, martial-arts, lectures, entertainment, private parties and even weddings, are both jewels in the city’s crown.

That is what makes both acts of petty, childish vandalism such a shame.

Probably neither act was personal, not a vendetta, but just for the sick thrill of getting away with it. It brings to mind the Johnny Cash line in which a prisoner says he shot a man “just to watch him die.”

It’s just a shame.