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
