Pandemic rules and Freedom

 Kids Arrested for Playing Hockey on Outdoors Skating Ring in Calgary CANADA

Pandemic hockey has different rules?

“Get on the f–king ground right now. Get on the f–k ground before I TASER you. Right now!” a Calgary Police officer is seen on cell phone video screaming at a 21-year-old who, along with pals, were accused of violating social distancing rules.”

One-time hockey prospect Ocean Wiesblatt would have been wise to have just followed police commands.

But he’s not the only one deserving a penalty for misconduct in a game that turned gross.

These officers’ on-ice performance was not exactly MVP worthy either.

Was this a fugitive from justice or murder suspect? No.

Wiesblatt was merely playing shinny when all hell broke loose.

First came Calgary bylaw officers. Then Calgary Police who seemed frustrated he wouldn’t comply.

A video shows a female officer wrestling with him before slipping on the ice. Another angrily threatened to use her conductive energy weapon.

It’s ugly to watch.

There were several kicks to the hockey player’s legs from the front and side as well as attempts to put him into a headlock.

His skates were cut off while pinned to the ice for up to six minutes.

When you have such force over playing hockey, it’s clear the pandemic lockdown approach is at a dark turning point.

Politicians encouraging strict enforcement should rethink this. Focus on the real dangers.

“We are seeing officers continually put into these untenable positions where they have to diffuse and support bylaw,” Supt. Ryan Ayliffe said in the Calgary Sun.

“Good people are trying to find pieces of what they want to do in a changing environment and it is stressing people out to the max.”

Police officers should not be put in this untenable position by the politicians but must still have to use common sense.

De-escalation in this stressful time is paramount. However people should obey police commands and sort it out later.

Ocean is not a criminal. He’s just a kid caught in a weird situation. He, three brothers and sister were raised on skates by a deaf single mother.

A top junior defenseman, recruited by the NCAA’s University of Vermont, is now charged with obstructing police and resisting arrest. He’s played some tough hockey but was his first time staring down a police stun gun.

This whole thing is ridiculous and highlights disappearing rights and freedoms thanks to COVID-19 restrictions. The contrast of response is stark from Calgary Police officers taking a knee at a Black Lives Matter protest in June but now threatening lethal force on a skating rink.

They should save time and not proceed with these dumb charges. Instead, Ocean and the officers should meet at the same rink, apologize to each other, become friends and play a game of charity shinny to raise money for the Calgary food bank.

Bring skates, sticks and a puck. Leave the stun guns in the holsters.

Hockey player

When you get knocked to the ice in hockey, you get back up.

Not only will alleged ice bandit Ocean Wiesblatt get back on the forbidden rink in the future, he already has.

He was skating on the same Calgary sheet Saturday — something he feels is a Canadian right.

“We have to get back control of our lives,” the 21-year-old told the Toronto Sun in an interview.

But on Thursday, the onetime NCAA hockey prospect had police stun guns pointed at him and was forcibly arrested by Calgary police after not leaving the ice.

As seen in a viral video, Wiesblatt said he was in a state of shock and surprise.

“I thought it was out of the ballpark,” he said.

“It didn’t make any sense.”

The video shows officers telling him to get off the ice and profanely threatening to use their stun guns on him.

He said he just wanted to know why.

“I was being arrested for playing hockey,” he said.

“This COVID stuff is out of control.”

Calgary police defend the actions to which public opinion is split.

“I just want the world to be peaceful and everybody to get along,” said Wiesblatt.

He wasn’t getting along with these officers who used extreme measures to arrest him.

While he said there were kicks to his midsection, “the only one that really hurt was the first kick to my knee,”

Said Ocean: “I guess it will get better but I can still feel it.”

When pinned on the ice, he said “it was really hurting” and “I was telling her that.”

Later he was “handcuffed” and “put in a room” in a police station for processing for obstructing police, resisting arrest charges and public health charges to the tune of $ 1,200 in fines.

“It’s sad,” he said.

“We need our basic freedoms back.”

SAISI

Dec 20, 2020