We can well understand a crime victim’s frustration over the sentence handed down this month to a man who all but admitted he did something unthinkable.
This man, a former corrections officer with the Hampden County Sheriff’s Department, walked up to nine people socializing on the patio of a Springfield restaurant and hosed them with a stream of pepper spray. One of them was a former girlfriend.
When police arrived at the restaurant that evening, Aug. 3, 2023, they found a crowd of people trying to get the irritant off their faces using towels soaked in milk. Many of them were emergency room nurses from a Springfield hospital. One had recently undergone eye surgery.
