By Veronica Rocha
Los Angeles Times
LOS ANGELES — A retired Los Angeles County judge called police late Wednesday night, saying there were people with guns in his home, police said. But when LAPD officers showed up, he fired at them and began a standoff that led to his arrest, police said.
The judge’s shots didn’t hit anyone, but they came dangerously close, said Los Angeles police Officer Liliana Preciado.
“Thankfully he was a bad shot,” she said.
James Bascue, 75, was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.
The incident began about 11:45 p.m. Wednesday, when the former judge called police reporting armed people inside a home in the 1900 block of South Barrington Avenue in West Los Angeles.
Dispatchers were unable to get more information because his TV was blaring and he refused to turn it down, Preciado said.
They took the call seriously, though, and police were dispatched immediately to Bascue’s residence in a townhome complex.
Officers peered into a window and saw Bascue sitting in a chair in the living room with two guns in his lap, Preciado said. He then loaded the guns’ magazines and pointed one gun at his head, police said. The officers pleaded with him to drop the weapons.
When he fired a shot inside his home and another in the direction of the officers outside a window, a SWAT team was called in.
Officers continued to try to talk Bascue down. They contacted family members, but he would not come out to speak to them.
He finally agreed to speak with a neighbor, who convinced him to turn himself in. He was arrested about 2:15 Thursday morning.
Police evaluated Bascue for mental health issues, but they did not place him on a psychiatric hold. They are looking into whether he was under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
Neighbor Ellen Hoffman said she’s lived in her home for more than year and has only seen Bascue about three times.
“The judge,” as neighbors call him, kept to himself, she said.
“He is very polite and very cultured,” she said. “He has a beautiful garden.”
Bascue retired in 2007 after serving 17 years on the bench.
Before he was appointed by Gov. George Deukmejian, he was a prosecutor for 16 years with the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office. He helped create the district attorney’s office’s Hardcore Gang Division.
In 1987, Bascue was selected chief trial counsel for the state bar and oversaw a new disciplinary program for attorneys, the Metropolitan News reported.
As supervising judge of the Criminal Division, Bascue was outspoken about California’s “three strikes” law, saying it was financially squeezing local courts and abandoning opportunities for rehabilitation.
He served as presiding judge for L.A. County Superior Court, and helped unify the court system after it had just merged with all municipal courts, according to Metropolitan News. Faced with budget cuts, Bascue worked to restructure management “such that it was inclusive and addressed what had been some touchy morale issues, " Judge Robert A. Dukes told Metropolitan News.
Bascue focused on maintaining community programs and expanding outreach efforts by hosting meet-your-judge events. He helped implement one-trial jury service, homeless court, a self-help legal access center and family court information centers, according to Metropolitan News.
Bascue was honored in 2002 by the Judicial Council of California, which gave him its Jurist of the Year Award for his work to unify the court.
That same year, he wrote an opinion piece for the L.A. Times about understanding the challenges of serving as a juror.
“We judges and other court officers haven’t been as sensitive as we could be to the realities of modern life. People simply don’t have two weeks to sit in a jury assembly room waiting to be called,” he wrote."And we haven’t handled the human relations part of jury service as effectively as we could.”
Bascue got his law degree at UC Davis. He married and later divorced L.A. County Superior Court Judge Jacqueline Connor.
In an interview with the L.A. Times in 1996, Bascue said he often escaped the stories of violence by retreating to his vacation home in Northern California, where he planted more than 8,000 trees.
Copyright 2015 the Los Angeles Times