Police chief wants review of arrest sparked by gun picture
By Dianne Wood, Record staff
February 27, 2012
Waterloo Region’s police chief has called for a “thorough review’’ of police actions related to the arrest and detention of a father whose daughter drew a picture of a gun in school.
“It appears at first blush a mistake was made, but you have to drill down into the details,’’ Police Chief Matt Torigian said Monday. “We have absolutely nothing to hide on this.
“If there were other things we could have done that could have prevented this, we’re certainly open to that.’’
Torigian was referring to last week’s incident involving Jessie Sansone, a 26-year-old Kitchener man who was arrested outside his children’s school, taken to the police station and strip-searched because his four-year-old daughter drew a picture in school of a man holding a gun.
She told her teacher it was a picture of her father who used the gun “to shoot bad guys and monsters.’’
Her teacher called child welfare authorities as teachers must when they believe a child’s safety is at risk. The teacher believed there was a gun in the child’s home accessible to the children.
Child welfare officials called police who came to the school and arrested Sansone as he came to pick up his three children. They told him he was being charged with possession of a weapon. He was cuffed outside the school and put in a cruiser.
Police also went to Sansone’s home and took his wife to the station for questioning. Their children were driven to Family and Children’s Services for separate interviews.
Sansone was eventually released without being charged. Police apologized to him. That’s when they told him he’d been arrested because of his child’s drawing and comments she made about it.
Sansone then let police search his house,
and a plastic toy gun was found.The story caught the attention of media and the public across the country and in the United States. It set off a firestorm of negative reaction by gun organizations and people concerned about police misuse of power.
The chief received quite a few of those negative comments.
Words like Gestapo and Hitler were used.
“They were incredibly ill-informed and vitriolic,’’ Torigian said. “(It was) an effort by gun enthusiasts who think, wrongly, this is the police reacting to a gun issue versus a child safety issue.’’
However, he said a review is warranted “to allay any concerns our community may have.
“We decided to conduct a thorough review into the actions that we took and circumstances that led to those actions,’’ he said. “First of all, most importantly, there is some consternation in the community about our actions.
“Public confidence in us and our community’s confidence that we are, in fact, capable of looking out for the safety of children, and doing it in a manner that respects the rights and freedoms of Canadians, is paramount for us.’’
Sansone, extremely upset about the incident, has hired an Ottawa lawyer and is no longer speaking publicly. The lawyer is looking into whether his charter rights and freedoms were violated.
Sansone called lawyer Solomon Friedman after seeing Friedman interviewed about his case on television. Friedman is a criminal defence lawyer who specializes in firearms’ law and the rights of gun owners. Friedman said Monday he
finds this ironic in Sansone’s case because he isn’t even a gun owner.“At this point, my role is to give Jessie legal advice and to assist him in developing a strategy for further legal action,’’ he said. “Right now, he’s considering all his legal options with regard to the school board, Family and Children’s Services and police.
“On its surface, it
appears serious mistakes were made
at every level. I share the concerns that have animated millions of Canadians across the country (that) there appears to have been an arbitrary arrest and detention.
“People are asking themselves,
‘Can this really happen in Canada?’ It’s shocking to people.’’
Friedman said his conclusions are preliminary because he hasn’t seen police reports or reports from child welfare officials or the school board. He wants to know what grounds police had to arrest and detain Sansone.
“Early on, they told him you’re being arrested for possession of a firearm. It’s not illegal in Canada to possess a firearm.
“Did they run his name to see if he had a firearms’ licence? What steps did they take?’’
Police can arrest someone if they believe on reasonable and probable grounds the person has committed an offence, he said. He questions whether
the girl’s drawing was enough “to take away someone’s liberty.’’
Torigian said that will be part of the review.
“If all the information officers had led them to reasonably believe he may have been in possession of firearm, they acted accordingly,’’ he said.
“There’s no disputing the fact that in this case, Mr. Sansone was arrested and detained because the officers believed he may have been in possession of a firearm. When that turned out not to be the case, the first place everyone’s mind would go is somebody made a mistake in this.’’
Friedman also questions whether police explained to Sansone why he was being arrested. Sansone said he didn’t find out the real reason for his arrest (the drawing) until he was being released.
The strip-search also concerns Friedman.
“The mere reason of an arrest is absolutely insufficient to justify a strip search,’’ he said. “Section 8 of the charter says everyone has the right to be secure from unreasonable search and seizure.’’
Torigian said police don’t routinely strip-search people placed in holding cells.
“If a thorough search is done, it’s done only when a particular threshold has been met and the circumstances justify or warrant it.’’
He defended handcuffing Sansone outside the school.
“When we have someone under arrest, common law and procedure and practice dictate they are cuffed when they’re put in the cruiser.’’
That’s a safety precaution to ensure someone doesn’t pull out a weapon and injure an officer in a cruiser, he said.
“In the early stages, he was suspected of being involved in weapons.’’
Friedman also said the search of Sansone’s home was unlawful, even though Sansone agreed to it after he was released from custody.
Sansone and his wife have been buoyed by the support they’ve received.
“I thought I was the only person around (who) was thinking something was terribly wrong after I got released,’’ Sansone said today. “It helps out a lot.’’
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