Judge totally missed the biggest clue in case involving Air Force Veteran

“Cook County Judge Adam Bourgeois Jr. told Bassett: “You should have more respect for police officers.”  Is what is reported that the judge said in an article titled “Police Confronted an Air Force Veteran While He Tried to Save His Dog’s Life. Now He’s Facing Felony Charges” by Jon Street for The Blaze.  This is doing a time where compassion and sensitivity is far outweighed by arrogance and that thin blue line supported by so many within our justice system regardless of what the circumstances are around ones action.  This is probably the same judge who would allow some Wall Street banker the luxury of using his “being too rich defense”  as an excuse for robbing his customers blind but failed to see the biggest clue in this case involving an Air Force Veteran.

The article reports that “Air Force veteran Samuel Bassett was arrested Friday in an alleged brawl with police that broke out when the cops wouldn’t let Bassett back into his burning home to save his dog.  “They kept trying to keep him out of the building because it was unsafe for him to go in. He wanted to go in,” Chicago Deputy Fire Commissioner Mark Nielsen said told the Chicago Tribune.  According to the Tribune, Officers repeatedly told Bassett to move back from the burning home. When he didn’t, they proceeded to arrest him. That’s when the former veteran allegedly resisted and hit at least one officer who tried to stop him from going back into the house.  The 48-year-old Chicago man was charged with two felony counts of aggravated battery to a peace officer and two misdemeanor counts of resisting a peace officer. He was being held on $300,000 bond and is expected back in court Friday, WMAQ-TV reported”.

Now nothing I say here will excuse the veteran for his actions but there should have been some kind of show of understanding in that court room.  Let us consider that maybe this veteran had lived through some horrendous events during his tours in the Air Force, contracted post-traumatic stress disorder and instead of killing others or himself, found that having that dog was what kept him functional.  He escapes the fire but the same could not be said about his only true stability to this world and once that fact began to settle in, he reacted as anyone would considering that the dog may have been the only family he had left.  I’m sure that if this judge had been standing in front of his home and learned that one of his children was trapped inside, police would have just as hard of a time keeping him from trying to re-enter the home.  No one is asking for anything more than just plain fairness.  Fine, him, give him jail time is necessary or even probation but to add insult to injury by casting doubt upon this man character is over the limit.  That judge does not know anything about this veteran except what he read in some report and to assume that he does not have any love or respect for the police is to assume that he knows more about this person or anyone who steps in front of him is the epitome of arrogance.