“The results of this review have determined that Waterloo Regional Police officers acted in accordance with the law by arresting Mr. Sansone and made every effort to preserve his dignity and the safety of this community, however, the review also found that due to a miscommunication in the processing of Mr. Sansone, he was subjected to a Thorough Search instead of a less intrusive Frisk Search – an oversight which we regret. Deputy Chief Thomlison and I recently met with, and personally apologized to Mr. Sansone for the impact this has had on him and his family” – Waterloo, Ontario Regional Police Chief Matt Torigian, in a message released today.
The report also noted that 4-year-old Nevaeh believed that the gun she drew was real. Presumably she also thought the monsters she drew were real.
Sansone told the media today that he’s still planning to sue.
February 28, 2012:
A couple of updates, a clarification, and a bit of confusion:
Jessie Sansone has consulted with an attorney, with an eye toward a lawsuit. No big surprise here.
Kitchener officials involved in the affair are, for the most part, standing by their actions (or “sticking to their guns,” as the Calgary Sun put it).
It turns out the picture the girl drew was not simply of her father holding a gun, but her father holding a gun and fighting off the aforementioned “bad guys and monsters” — a pretty good indication that the drawing represented a child’s fantasy.
While it seems most logical that the girl’s name is actually Nevaeh — “Heaven” spelled backwards — local newspapers are all over the place on the spelling. We’ll stick the “Nevaeh” here until she produces her long-form birth certificate.
February 27, 2012:
Last Wednesday, in Kitchener, Ontario (Canada), 4-year-old Nevaeh Sansone drew a picture of her father holding a gun. Her teacher reported it to the principal, the principal reported it to the local police, and when her father, Jessie Sansone, came to pick her up, he was arrested, strip-searched and put into a cell — without explanation — and two of his other children who were with him at the time were taken into Family and Children’s Services custody.
Now, Sansone wasn’t arrested only because his kindergarten daughter drew a crayon picture of a gun — that would be silly. Waterloo Regional Police Inspector Kevin Thaler points out that there were additional concerns:
When Nevaeh’s teacher asked her about the drawing, the 4-year-old said “That’s my daddy’s. He uses it to shoot bad guys and monsters.”
There is no indication that Jessie Sansone ever shot a bad guy. Or a monster.
And a search of Sanson’s home — conducted with his consent — found no guns.
Sansone was released a few hours after his arrest with an apology.
A spokesperson for Family and Children’s Services pointed out that the agency was obligated to investigate the school’s report — but of course there’s a difference between investigating a teacher’s suspicion and the police arresting, strip-searching and imprisoning a man.
Update: The gun Nevaeh drew does exist: it’s a toy.
This article, and all articles on this site, are
© 2012 by Bill Bickel unless otherwise noted.
Is it illegal to own a gun in Canada? IOW, suppose everything the daughter said was true – she’d seen her father with a gun, and she’d seen him use it to shoot (at) a bad guy. Would that necessarily have broken any Canadian laws?
Reading between the lines of the local (Hi, I’m from there) paper, it seems like the most significant factor was that Samsone had a criminal record. Now, he had paid his debt to society and the crimes had not been gun-related or even violent, but looking at it, that’s the only thing I can see in the reports that would have made Children’s Aid wig out like that.
Because I think they did wig out. Granted that they get a lot of heat from the times when they don’t wig out and there’s a bad result, I still think they did wig out.
It’s not illegal to own a gun, but pistols definitely have to be registered. The lockup and licensing rules are fairly strict for all guns, but stricter for pistols. You have to be licensed first for longarms or for pistols (though there are workarounds if you inherited your dad’s rifle(s), for instance). The carry rules are very restrictive: unless you’re in the military or a police force, you probably have to have your pistol locked up and in your trunk when you’re travelling to and from the gun range.
And my knowledge is a few years old; I still think of the licensing as obtaining your Firearms Acquisition Certificate (FAC), when I know they changed the name a few years ago. (A friend has his license because he’s a stagehand in Stratford and has to be licensed for explosives.) So I don’t guarantee what I say, but it has probably become more restrictive, rather than less.
Deer hunting season is still very big, especially in the more rural areas. (When I was in Halifax, my host pointed out the high absentee rate during deer season.) My relatives go out to plunk groundhogs, a perennial farming nuisance, at all times of the year.
Oh, and may we *please* have a way to subscribe to comments? Pretty please?
Chakolate, the magazine has an IT person, and I’ll pass along the suggestion.
Amazing how reactions can be so different depending on where it happens. If my daughter drew me holding a gun, the teacher would probably ask me when I was going to take her to get her first deer, or want to talk about what kind of gun(s) I owned, had I been to the recent gun show, where do I buy my ammo, etc. I don’t hunt and don’t own any guns, but I’m the exception around here. Kids around here probably draw their dads holding guns all the time and everyone is proud of them for it.
So, per the update, she didn’t draw him holding a gun, but playing a video game?
According to the update, it shoots actual pellets, so not a video game.
At first, I was wondering the same as the first commenter – is it illegal to own a gun there? At least the overreaction would be a little more justified. However, after reading the linked update, it doesn’t look to me like the law was even a consideration here. It really gets me peeved when reading things like “triggering fears that the family home contained a weapon that was a threat to the children”. Did the little girl say anything to imply that she was threatened? Because saying he uses it to “shoot bad guys and monsters” doesn’t sound like she felt threatened. And this perceived threat is reiterated in the related story written by D’Amato. I don’t know. Maybe there is more to this story than we were told.
Working under the premise that there’s always both more and less to a story than meets the eye, I wonder whether perhaps the police met him at the school to question him and he went all Henry Louis Gates on them.
It could be even simpler than that… the police were at the school when he arrived to question him, and they started by asking him where he stores his gun, and he responded along the lines of “what gun?” since he had no idea what they were talking about.
I’m Canadian, and know the firearms laws up here pretty well. This is to answer a couple of questions that people have asked.
It is NOT illegal to own a gun in Canada. You need a licence, and at this writing they all need to be registered (there’s a bil pending that will remove the requirement to register long guns if / when it passes).
There are some legal storage requirements – the short version is one lock for long guns (put a trigger lock on or keep them locked up in a gun safe or similar), two locks for handguns (both trigger lock and in a safe).
Firing a gun in self-defense, or even handling one in a way that implies that you might (taking it out onto your step to see what the commotion in the yard is about) can land you in a pile of trouble. You may eventually be acquitted, but it’ll make a mess of your life along the way. Google “Laurie Manzer” for a case study.
There is nothing illegal about owning a firearm, target shooting at the range, etc. My young son has seen videos of me skeet shooting, and the only reason he wasn’t there in person is that he wouldn’t like the noise levels.
To check out Canada’s firearms laws straight from the source, go to http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca.
Sansone needs to start suing all involved with this travesty, and not stop until none of the idiots, both in uniform and out, who persecuted him are gathering up carts in the mall parking lot for a living.
” *ALL* of the idiots” in that last paragraph, not “none.”
Good thing I specified which idiots I meant….
Would they have reacted the same way if a boy had made the drawing?
Was there another parent available?
Mom, who is pregnant, was home with the couple’s baby.
I think the teacher went off half-cocked.
(Come on, everyone out there was thinking this …)
Also, the daughter’s name appears to be an attempt to spell HEAVEN backwards.
I couldn’t pick either choice in the voting. While it may not have been a justifiable arrest, if he wins his suit, he should get a case of Molson, which he can split with his lawyer.
Why do people think taking huge amounts of tax-payer’s money from government agencies will improve them?
I certainlyl hope he sues; not for a cash settlement, but for the immediate dismissal of the teacher and principal, and maybe the arresting officers.
I’m not sure about the cops, because we don’t know what they were told before responding to the call. If all the info they had was that it was a situation involving a firearm and children, their overreaction may be understandable. If they thought there might be danger, I can understand them getting the cuffs on first, and sorting it out later.
Maybe.
I can’t imagine any explanation that would mitigate the guilt of the teacher and principal.
-Zirbert
http://zirbert.blogpost.com
Yes! Let’s see the birth certificate!
I knew she wasn’t qualified to run for President!
(Wait, sorry, wrong forum there …)
Getting back to the original story, if one of my students said that her father shoots bad guys, I’d have assumed he was a cop.
And both McGuinty and the Childrens “Aid” both defend their reprehensible, anti-democratic and anti-constitutional actions, saying they’d do it all over again.
He’s also about to find out you _can’t_ sue the Childrens’ Aid in Ontario – It’s already gone to the Supreme Court. They can pretty much act with impunity “for the best interests of the children” – Even when it means locking up and strip searching parents who have literally done nothing wrong.