This may be old / repost news: 4yr old's drawing sends dad to jail

Link to story (cafemom)

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One day last week at school Jessie Sansone's 4-year-old daughter drew a picture of a man with a gun. The teacher didn't like it, so she called Family and Social Services. If you think that's an outrageous overreaction, just wait.

According to the Calgary Herald, when Jessie went to pick up his daughter and his other children at the end of the day, he was handcuffed, arrested, and strip searched, as they looked for this gun. They did actually find one after they went and searched the family's home in Ontario ... only it turned out to be a toy. Yes, the only gun in the entire house was a toy gun.


Unbelievable.

It's outrageous on so many fronts, the first of which is that it was a complete violation of civil liberties even if the gun had been real. It's not illegal to have a gun in one's home. Maybe her dad is a hunter; maybe it's for protection and licensed. She didn't draw anyone shooting someone dead or committing another crime; she just drew a man with a gun. According to the Toronto Sun, the girl even told authorities it depicted her dad "getting the bad guys and monsters."

As I read various reports about the incident, I kept waiting for there to be more to this story, but nope -- it was all about this one drawing. For that, this man was treated like a criminal, and his pregnant wife and four children were dragged into the whole mess as well, as they had to go to the station for questioning. How incredibly confusing for those children.

It's outrageous that the school and social workers were so quick to involve police. How about calling in the parents, voicing concern, and hearing what they had to say first? My son has drawn a lot of crazy things in his school days, and we certainly don't have rocket launchers or nunchucks lying about anywhere but his imagination. If parents can arrested for what their children draw, we all should be scared.

And what a way to encourage creativity and a passion for self expression in preschoolers: arrest their parents if you don't like what they draw. The 4-year-old's words to her father after he was released were heartbreaking, "Daddy, are you mad at me?"

Yes, protecting our children must be our first priority, but this is just an abuse of power. It serves as a frightening example of over-protection that certainly did much more harm than good.

Do you find this father's arrest outrageous? What things have your children drawn that authorities might question?


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Wow.

Re: This may be old / repost news: 4yr old's drawing sends dad to jail

I hope he sues the pants off of everybody involved.

Re: This may be old / repost news: 4yr old's drawing sends dad to jail

I really hope there is more to this story.....

When my cousin was younger ( she had and still has many emotional Issues) she drew a green hand when drawing for the psychiatrist , the Dr then told my aunt what he thought it meant, horrible things like sexual abuse, a few days later my aunt was watching the show" Arthur" with my cousin ( a show my cousin watched all of the time) and realized there was a green hand that introduced every segment or story, sexual abuse not so much, but it had our family beside ourselves for a little while.

Re: This may be old / repost news: 4yr old's drawing sends dad to jail

A friend of my dh had a similar thig happen. He used to play cops and robbers with his son in their basement rec room. The dad would always be the cop and when he would catch his ds he would put him in "jail".

When the ds was at school, the teacher asked what their favorite game to play at home was. The ds said "I like it when my dad handcuffs me in the basement."

The school called CPS and they had regular consists for awhile. Crazy.

Re: This may be old / repost news: 4yr old's drawing sends dad to jail

teachers, school workers, etc are mandatory reporters. I told my principal every time a student said something, no matter what. One time it turned out to be true, and I'd like to think it saved that child and any other children that entered that home.

Message edited 3/8/2012 11:25:03 PM.

Re: This may be old / repost news: 4yr old's drawing sends dad to jail

Oh man. My husbands boss has (what I thought was a funny story) kind of similar.

Mind you, his boss is the sweetest man...his daughter just graduated HS and he was telling us at her graduation party that when she was little she had asked him where he Grandpa was (his Dad) so he explained that he didn't have a Dad because he left the family when he was little and that he doesn't like to talk about it, and asked her to please not tell anyone. She understood and agreed not to tell anyone.

He said he mainly didn't want the town to know his business as, she loved to talk.

A few months later, they were doing some sort of screenings at school, speaking to classes about child abuse and they asked the class if any of the kids parents have ever asked them to keep a secret. She raised her hand. They brought her aside after the group discussion and asked her what the secret was and she told them that she promised her Daddy she wouldn't tell.

Well, the school social worker investigated him...and he finally told his daughter it was okay to tell the school their secret.

Re: This may be old / repost news: 4yr old's drawing sends dad to jail

Re: This may be old / repost news: 4yr old's drawing sends dad to jail

To be honest I find the whole story a bit strange. I don't blame the teacher/school. It is thier job to make the report, not investigate...that is CPS' job to make sure they do a thorough investigation and find if there is a true threat. I don't think that the teacher/school did anything wrong. If the teacher felt strongly about a threat (and we don't know any background about the family) then she did the right thing. I am sure that there was some question as to the safety of the child for whatever reason. CPS would not take a call if they didn't feel the child's safety was in jeopardy. (at least not in my experience)

Re: This may be old / repost news: 4yr old's drawing sends dad to jail

Reporting it isn’t an issue to me. I know I had a drawing reported when I was young. I was in CA and they said “draw a picture from the state you were born in” as we were on a military base that meant a lot of states. So I drew a desert land with cactus and cowboys and Indians with the cowboys being shot with arrows and bleeding and one set of cowboy boots obviously being dragged off the page. Dad got a call. I was in 2nd grade?

My issue is not with the school but to handcuff dad based on a picture is a bit over the top to put him in jail without proof and then all this boils down to an imagination? Ok that’s extreme. Guess I’m naïve enough to believe in innocent until proven guilty.

However, considering my brother is now looking at 15yrs of jail for giving a friend a ride, I am slowly being jaded to the judicial system in our own country.

Message edited 3/9/2012 11:16:54 AM.

Re: This may be old / repost news: 4yr old's drawing sends dad to jail

If a child shows that the way they envision their dad is with a gun in his hand then it should be investigated. To handcuff the dad on the spot is a violation. To investigate is absolutely not. If the child had drawn this picture and the story ended differently, like with a shooting after the fact, everyone would question why there was no investigation.