And So The Story Begins With A Wrongful Arrest

Posted by Innocent Man as Our Story

The day started out like any other Sunday, I woke up early so my wife could sleep in while I took care of our son. It was something we had been doing for a couple of weeks and I liked it because it gave me a chance to further bond with him. He is a fan of “In the Night Garden” and I’m not totally ashamed to admit that it was starting to grow on me, but the only time I would watch the show was when I knew no one else was looking. I had no idea that this day would end with me being handcuffed and then taken away from my family after a wrongful arrest justified by zero tolerance laws.

When my wife woke up a couple of hours later I decided to get some work done. I’m a contract worker, and the latest job was allowing me to work from home, which I really enjoyed. I wouldn’t miss my son growing up in his early months, and it allowed me to help out my wife whenever she needed it. I also had an online business that I was still developing to supplement our single income, and that was what I had wanted to work on.

By 1:30 pm my wife was getting a little antsy and lonely and after sending me a couple of text messages to my cellphone from the living room asking me to stop working, I walked down the hallway to the living room from the back office to spend some time with both of them and discuss our plans for later on. The day before was my wife’s birthday and although I had gotten her a card and her favorite cake we hadn’t gone out to celebrate. We were still fairly new to the area and didn’t know any babysitters. Not that we would trust anyone without some pretty strong references because our son can be a handful, his nickname is squirmy-bug. We were also a little tight on money so we could either pay for a babysitter or go out to celebrate, but not both.

Since moving and getting to know the neighbourhood a little bit, and after making friends with the manager of a restaurant across the street, we knew that he would have no problem with us bringing our son that evening because it was always quiet on Sundays. Something he had told us on one occasion about a month earlier. Both my wife and I have always been concerned about bringing a potentially screaming baby anywhere public that could disturb other paying customers, so it suited us fine. We had some cold beer in the fridge so we decided to have those and just relax the rest of the day.

I am not too sure what it is about beer and finances, but let me tell you the two do not mix. We had recently moved to Durham region and although the rent was similar to our last place, things like hydro, cable, internet, home phone, cell phones and coin operated laundry that were all included in our last place in York, were now all extra expenses. For the past few weeks I had been trying to sit down with my wife so we could go over our budget and figure things out, but the time just never presented itself. I felt that we should be tightening our belts and not overspending because my current contract was coming to a possible end and I knew that I would have to find a new job that would more than likely be out of the home and create travel expenses on top of everything else. I have always lived in major cities growing up and as a result was able to use public transit to get to where ever I was going, so after a move years earlier from Montreal to Toronto I had simply let my drivers license expire. Cars are expensive to have in this day and age anyway. The discussion quickly turned into an arguement and we decided that it was best to just drop it and discuss it later.

Between the early morning wake-up and the beer infused arguement I was feeling a little tired so I decided to lie down and take a short nap before we went out and my wife wanted to finish getting the laundry done. The nap turned out to be 2 hours long and it was almost 8:30 pm by the time I woke up. With today being the day before the civic holiday we knew that the restaurant would be closing at 11:00 pm so we both quickly got ready. Because I work from home I have to admit that I had gotten a little lazy taking care of myself and hadn’t shaved for a week and because it was getting late I decided to forgo the shower and instead changed my clothes and grabbed my favorite baseball hat and then helped my wife pack up our son’s things. Our little man is pretty easy going when it comes to going out, we have one of those strollers that has all the bells and whistles and coupled with a few toys and a bottle of juice and milk he would normally be fairly quiet for a short time. What I hadn’t known until later that night was that because we were leaving the house my wife had taken an extra dose of her anti-anxiety medication before we left.

When we arrived at the restaurant and after the manager and waitresses came to fawn over our rapidly growing son, we ordered two pints of Canadian and toasted my wife’s belated birthday. While we were there one of the waitresses came over after the manager told her we were still looking for a babysitter and she gave us a friends number who not only had a lot of experience but could provide great references. After two more pints of Canadian we decided it was time to leave and along the way back we discussed whether or not we could afford the babysitter. This unfortunately led back to our earlier budget discussion with near the same end results. If I haven’t already said it, do not ever discuss finances while drinking.

After putting our son to bed and turning out most of the lights, the discussion turned arguement continued briefly and when I finally realized that it was going absolutely no where, I decided to step out on the kitchen balconey for a smoke and my wife headed towards the bathroom. After grabbing a cigarette and heading to the door I was interupted by a loud crash from the hallway. I stopped mid stride, turned around and went back only to find my wife lying on the floor next to the upturned laundry basket and looking disoriented.

When I helped her up I noticed she wasn’t stable and was swaying back and forth and when I asked her what had happened, she told me she fell after tripping over the laundry basket. This is when I also noticed that her speach was slurred. I know my wife well enough that a couple of pints of beer could not have caused her condition, but all the same I was angry and told her she was drunk and that she should just go to bed. She insisted that she wasn’t drunk and that it was probably just because she had taken an extra dose of her medication. I was stunned at this point, we both knew full well that the medication wasn’t supposed to be mixed at the same time with alcohol and out of anger I told her she was irresponsible and a bad mother. I knew it would hurt her and I do regret saying it because it is not at all true. My wife is a great mother and has done everything possible for our son despite her disorder and disease. Arguements are a strange thing though because those in them end up saying something that knowingly hurts the other, especially when they know each other as well as we do.

As I turned and walked away from her towards the couch in the living room, through my peripheral vision I saw her following quickly behind me. When I sat down she grabbed my face and said that she was not irresponsible or a bad mother and that she would never forgive me if I ever repeated it again. I already knew she was right and that I shouldn’t have said it but instead of simply apologizing, I just looked away, got up off the couch and went to have the smoke I had wanted earlier. This triggered her anger even more.

After finishing my cigarette I re-entered the living room from the kitchen and while passing by looked down the hall to see my wife approaching with my cell phone up to her ear and talking to someone. She still had the look of anger and hurt on her face. After listening for a few seconds I was able to determine that she had called 911 and after continuing the conversation for about a minute further asked the 911 operator if she could just cancel the call and that she had made a mistake by phoning. After hanging up however she told me that the 911 operator said she could not do that, and that the police were on there way.

Because I knew that the police would not know that our son was fast asleep and would end up ringing the front doorbell and waking him, I decided to go around front and then lead them to our balconey entrance which enters our place directly from our parking lot without disturbing any neighbours.