An Ontario councillor considers herself “lucky” after she was merely singed by a firework that she says someone shot at her on Canada Day in the Uptown area of Waterloo.
Ward 7 Coun. Julie Wright told Global News that she was leaving the Canada Day drone show at Waterloo Park with her family on Monday night at around 10:30 p.m. when the trouble began.
“As we headed home, we were coming down Central Street in uptown Waterloo, and my family was up ahead,” she explained. “I was in trailing them a little bit and there was a fellow in the bushes on the school property lighting fireworks.”
The councillor said she yelled for the man to stop as there were families who were walking by the area at the time.
“He just turned on me and started shooting the fireworks at me,” she said. “It was multiple fireworks so two to three of them went off and one of them hit me right where my ear meets my cheek,” she said,
The councillor said she was on her bike and was wearing a bike helmet when the incident occurred.
Wright was “just ducking and evading and managed to get one right in the ear,” she explained.
“I was lucky because I was probably six to eight feet away and it wasn’t a direct hit,” Wright said. “So I had some singed hair and I have a sore spot there on my face but no serious damage. I’m just really lucky.”
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Wright said that once the fireworks began to fly in her direction, she immediately grabbed her phone and called 911.
That was when Wright’s husband sent their kids home and went back to investigate the situation.
“He circled back and then he was able to get a photo of the individuals who are involved,” she explained. “So there was a main person and then there was an associate of that individual and he managed to get the photos. So the police have some good evidence.”
Wright said 911 dispatchers told her Waterloo Regional Police had their hands full on the holiday but an officer did come to her home later to investigate the incident.
“An officer came and met me at my home and did the follow up work, she said. “I mean, I didn’t need to go to the hospital so take me off the the high priority list, but I appreciated the follow up.”
Later in the day, police released an image of a man they were looking to speak with in connection to the incident.
UPDATE: On Thursday, police announced that a 37-year-old Kitchener man had been arrested in connection to the case.
They also said that a second person was also injured in connection to the incident as well.
The incident was not the only one that police were dealing with on Monday night as they were also forced to shut down Kitchener’s Victoria Park for the second time this year.
In a release, police said that there were unruly crowds aiming fireworks at other park-goers including families and children.
Police said that at one point, a firework was set off underneath a stroller which caused a fight to break out between two groups in the park.
They said that officers were forced to use pepper spray to empty out the park.
Officers were also forced to deal with issues at the park in Kitchener on Victoria Day weekend and as they were attempting to clear the park after people had shot fireworks into the crowd, they had fireworks shot at them.
A couple of weeks prior to that incident, there was another fireworks incident in Waterloo at Mary Allen Park.
Police said that a group of teens were setting off fireworks at the park and one was thrown in a passerby’s face.
The victim was left with “significant” burn injuries, according to police, and taken to an out-of-region hospital for treatment.
Wright believes it might be time for the politicians to tighten up the rules surrounding fireworks.
“I think it’s now time for a broader conversation between our city councils, between law enforcement,” she said. “It’s time now for us to get serious about this.”