The case of Jessie Sansone and his ordeal at the hands of the Almighty State should sound the alarm bells deep inside every Canadian’s brain.
Three government agencies, all now abdicating responsibility for the fiasco, combined for a perfect storm of abuse upon Jessie Sansone, all because his 4-year-old daughter drew a picture of her dad holding a gun.
NEWS FLASH!
Owning firearms is legal in Canada! (IF you have the correct permission slip from the Almighty State, that is.)
Not that Jessie Sansone owned any firearms, of course, but who cares about a pesky little detail like that?
A parent should not be arrested by three cops, hauled away in handcuffs, strip searched and locked in a cell simply because his kid drew a picture.
Is there absolutely NO common sense left in this nation???
Reading the rationalizations of the Forest Hills Public School staff, Family and Children’s Services mouthpieces and the Waterloo Regional Police leave me utterly astounded that so many theoretically smart people can act so stupidly. That they’re now scrambling to rationalize their atrocious actions comes as no surprise at all.It all started when Jessie Sansone’s young daughter drew a picture. It was a picture of her dad holding a gun. When asked about it, she said, according to the newspapers, that it was her daddy using a gun against “bad guys and monsters.”
To quote Matt Gurney’s piece in the National Post:
The drawing that set all this off was a drawing of Sansone being a good guy — according to what his daughter told her kindergarten teacher, the picture was of her daddy using a gun against “bad guys and monsters.” Protecting her, in other words. It was essentially a comic strip with her father in the role of the hero. Good Lord! We’d better call in the SWAT team, quick!
The police, of course, feel otherwise. The drawing of her dad acting in the role all fathers should, protector, seen through the eyes of The Almighty State show something altogether different than what any person exercising three pennies worth of common sense would see:
“From a public safety point of view, any child drawing a picture of guns and saying there’s guns in a home would warrant some further conversation with the parents and child,” said Alison Scott, executive director of Family and Children’s Services.
Really?
Because in combing through all the news reports of this debacle, I could not find a single report of there being a “conversation” with Jessie Sansone. He went from caring father picking up his kids from school to felon of the year in about ten seconds, even though he hadn’t done a single thing wrong. It was hours before Jessie Sansone even knew why police were treating him like a murderer.
That matters little to the agents of The Almighty State though, does it?
Waterloo Regional Police Insp. Kevin Thaler said there was a complaint from Forest Hills Public School that “a firearm was in a residence and children had access to it. We had every concern, based on this information, that children were in danger.”
There was no investigation to see if the hysterical ninnies from the school or Family and Children’s Services were the least bit credible. None was required.
They had spoken those magic words that cause all logic and critical thinking to cease: “child” and “gun” were used in the same sentence.
All that was left was the show of overwhelming State power, lest any of us mere citizens still foolishly think we live in a country that values Rights and Freedoms.
No child was in danger, despite all of these hysterical people’s claims. The child did NOT have access to a gun like Waterloo Police Inspector Thaler claimed. The warrantless search of Jessie Sansone’s home by police proved that. There was only hysterical teachers freaking out because a 4-year-old drew a picture of her dad with a gun.
Long gone are the days where kids can actually play or have an imagination in school. Now they must all be good little minions of the Almighty State or Daddy gets a strip search.
I’m not the only one who thinks all this zero tolerance crap has gone too far, am I? Thankfully not. Matt Gurney wrote:
So where does the common sense or discretion come in? … Whatever happened to conducting an investigation, gathering evidence and building a case before swooping in with two units of armed officers?
Those days are long gone, my friend. Long gone indeed.
Naturally, all three agencies of The Almighty State stand by their atrocious actions.
Forest Hills Public School says it had “no choice” but to call Family and Children’s Services.
According to Alison Scott, the spokesperson for Family and Children’s Services, that agency too had “no choice” but to call police even though they never even saw the drawing.
And the Waterloo Regional Police… well, they just couldn’t arrest Jessie Sansone fast enough, even though they had absolutely NO evidence that he had committed any crime.
None of that matters though, does it?
A 4-year-old kid drew a picture of a gun.
What more justification do we need to trample the Rights and Freedoms of an entire family?
—
Charles Adler and Kris Simms on this atrocious case.
—
Not to be outdone, here is Ezra Levant’s awesome rant on this situation:
Jim Butler says
Absolute insanity.
The truth really is stranger than fiction…