'It stops here': Man explains how he stood up to axe-wielding stranger yelling racial slurs

The man who was approached by a stranger allegedly carrying an axe and yelling racial slurs over the weekend said he decided to stand his ground because he is tired of racism.

Damien Edwin was visiting family on Karn Street in Kitchener, Ont. on Saturday evening. He was outside the home saying goodbye to his daughter and her boyfriend around 7 p.m. when a man down the street caught his attention.

“He was yelling obscenities about speeding vehicles. I wasn’t paying him any mind because I wasn’t driving and my daughter’s boyfriend, who was about to be driving his car, hadn’t even gotten into the car yet,” Edwin said.

“[My daughter and her boyfriend] left and then the cussing and the obscene language continued. So I looked down the street and realized the gentleman was facing my direction.”

Edwin said he asked the man who he was speaking to.

“That’s when he started to yell the racial slurs about ‘you Black blah blah blah,” he explained. “He said: ‘it’s you I’m talking to. I just got out of prison. You can come down here and we can deal with it.’”

Edwin said the man briefly disappeared on a property a few houses away, and he thought the situation was over.

“Then he came back, minus a jacket, with something in his hand walking up the street towards me,” Edwin said.

“It’s not until he was about 10 to 15 feet away that I realized it was an axe he had – a full on, long-handled axe.”

Edwin said the man walked right up to him and stood about two feet away.

“He was yelling these racial slurs. Saying ‘you Black so-and-so, you better get back to where you came from, why are you here?”

Damien Edwin is seen in his Kitchener home on Dec. 18, 2023. (Stefanie Davis/CTV Kitchener)

Edwin said he stayed calm, but didn’t back down. As the slurs continued, Edwin called police to report it and the man left.

“The dispatcher tried to get me to go in the home, but I knew my wife was out and she was going to be back soon so I refused to go in. I stood out there until [police] came because I didn’t know if she came and he was still out there what would have happened,” Edwin explained.

He said police arrived quickly. They located and arrested the suspect.

Amanda Edwin, his wife, showed up with their niece a few minutes later while police were there.

“There were three cop cars around and I thought ‘okay, this is something serious,’” she said.

Amanda said she’s proud of how her husband handled the situation, but is also scared that it happened in the first place.

“He’s right in terms of we tend to sit back too much and not say anything, or let things slide under the table and not do anything,” she explained.

“I guess the fear [is] that people believe that they can do that and it’s okay for them to do it. It’s not okay for someone to go home and come back with an axe, because to me, that’s intention.”

The 52-year-old man was charged with assault with a weapon, possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose and break and enter. Waterloo regional police said he was held in custody for a bail hearing.

On Monday, police announced they are treating the investigation as a “hate-motivated crime.”

“Based on the totality of the investigation, including racial slurs uttered by the accused, officers determined that the offences of assault with a weapon and possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose were motivated by hate,” Const. Melissa Quarrie with Waterloo Regional Police Service explained in an emailed statement.

“A hate-motivated crime is a crime that is motivated by bias, prejudice or hate towards an identifiable group.”

‘I’M TIRED’

Edwin’s family moved to Canada from Trinidad and Tobago in 2008. He said he’s experienced racism and micro-aggression multiple times over the years and despite some societal progress, it still exists.

“We need to do more to talk about these things because it’s happening way too often in our own community and it’s not being spoken about. I think the time has come for us to start saying it when it happens because we need to do better as a society,” he said.

When he saw the stranger approaching him with an axe, Edwin said he was afraid but knew he had to take action. In this case, that meant not backing down.

“I’m tired. I’m basically tired of this and so that fight or flight mechanism that we all experience – I decided, you know what, it stops here. I’m not easily intimidated. Was I fearful? Yes. But a decision had to be made at that point in time and I was ready to make that decision,” he said.

“Thankfully it ended how it did, but having to make that conscious decision to not run – I’m tired of running, we’re tired of running.”

He said he also recognized it was important to stay calm.

“Because when, and if, we react, we’re always seen as the aggressor. The negative one. Because that’s what history has portrayed us as – the angry Black man or the angry Black woman – which is unfortunate because we really have no out in terms of how society views us.”

Amanda volunteers with the Caribbean Canadian Association of Waterloo Region. She said things like this are happening too often.

“We constantly hear about the aggressions and all the racist comments and the things that people say,” she said.

“It’s not right. Society is evolving too quickly and we are too modern now for us to still be at that stage of being racist. Why? For me it’s about a lack of awareness.”

Edwin hopes sharing his story will inspire others to speak out about similar experiences to raise awareness about the hate that still exists.

“I want folks to know it’s okay to speak out – they need to. The more we’re able to speak out on something like this, the more our society or community is aware how very engrained it is and that, hopefully, will start shedding the light that we as a society really do need to take stock,” he said.

“We need to stop being reactionary and take a more proactive approach to this and not just give it that proverbial lip service.”