A father has been arrested, strip-searched and hauled in for questioning – all because his four-year-old daughter drew a picture of a gun at school.This is crazy. About half of all American households have guns. It is not a crime. It is not unusual. It is not dangerous. It is not contrary to social norms.
“I’m picking up my kids and then, next thing you know, I’m locked up,” Jessie Sansone, 26, told the Waterloo Region Record in Canada. “I was in shock. This is completely insane. My daughter drew a gun on a piece of paper at school.”
Sansone, a Kitchener resident, had arrived at Forest Hill public school to pick up his children when he was called to the principal’s office. Three police officers informed him he was being charged with possession of a firearm. Then he was escorted out of the school, handcuffed and locked in the back of a police car. ...
“I just think they blew it out of proportion,” his wife said. “It was for absolutely nothing. They searched our house upside down and found nothing. They had the assumption he owned a firearm.”
She added, “The way everything happened was completely unnecessary, especially since we know the school very well. I don’t understand how they came to that conclusion from a four-year-old’s drawing.”
Alison Scott, executive director of Family and Children’s Services, said the agency was required to investigate after the school reported the incident.
“Our community would have an expectation if comments are made about a gun in a house, we’d be obligated to investigate that to ensure everything is safe,” she said. “In the end, it may not be substantiated. There may be a reasonable explanation for why the child drew that gun. But we have to go on what gets presented to us.”
(Correction: A reader points out that this happened in Canada, where the subjects do not have the free speech rights, gun rights, and protections from searches that Americans have from the Bill of Rights.)
This incident is the result of an ideology where fathers are guilty until proven innocent, where teachers are required to report suspicions, where CPS investigates trivial complaints, and where police use public safety as an excuse to violate civil liberties.
Speaking of busybodies, I happened to see ABC TV Primetime: What Would You Do? last night. The show mainly consists of actors displaying anti-social behavior, and using a hidden camera to record the reaction of random busybodies. For example, last night showed someone eating more than one free food sample at a grocery store, and trying to provoke others into turning the eater into store management.
The also had a nanny calling a cute 10-year-old girl a "spoiled brat" on a public sidewalk. That provoked busybodies more than anything. The segment ended with the host saying, "On this day, virtually everyone else agreed, it is the child's best interest that matters most." I guess that is the slogan of busybodies everywhere.
6 comments:
Waterloo is in Canada, where handguns are prohibited. So yes, it is a crime to own a gun there. I'm not saying the response wasn't an overreaction, but you should correct your post to reflect the actual facts.
You're right, I overlooked the Canadian location. This is a good example of why we do not want to end up like Canada.
Good God...Anonymous. Could your rebuke to the author about Waterloo being in Canada be any more trivial? Who gives a f*ck where it is, or what the local laws are? It was a three-cop arrest in an elementary school of a man (why not the mother or older sister??) based entirely on a 4-year-olds drawing, that could have come from anywhere in the child's impressionable little mind.
The response of all parties in this sordid affair was not just an "overreaction", it was nothing short of state-rape, based on an entirely corrupt legal framework, supported by moral cowards.
Speaking of morals, there's a good moral case for it being child abuse. This action may cause the child lifelong guilt and depression when it finds out that something so innocent it did at age 4 nearly caused Dad to be put in prison (and most likely lose custody and all he owns in the process).
Fuck sake man, focus on the bigger issue here.
I am happy to be corrected, and happy that the USA is not yet as bad as Canada.
Yet little done in response to the riots.
The state employs a thin veneer of invulnerability. The folks in charge are increasingly out of touch, and it will end badly for them.
Handguns are not prohibited in canada per se. If you have a Firearms Certificate and register your handguns everything is cool. Actually if mr.Sansone had a registered firearm it would have been more difficult for the authorities to overeact so badly.
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