Christopher Darryl is still having flashbacks from a violent assault that happened not far from his southwest home in Calgary’s Silverado community.
“I remember the sound of it – it was the most horrific sound I ever heard,” he said.
Darryl had just arrived home from a public speaking engagement. His teenage daughter and her friends were hanging out in the basement and a couple of them left to head to the store. Minutes after they left, they returned to say they were being harassed by a group of young men down the street.
Darryl went out at about 1 a.m. – alone – to see what the trouble was about. But when he engaged in a brief conversation, he says one of the men pulled out a baseball bat and knocked him on the head. Once he fell, he says the rest of the group swarmed and started beating him.
“As I went down, all of them came on top and started kicking me in the face,” Darryl recalled.
“It was incredible. I stood up right after and walked away and walked home and I didn’t look in the mirror but from everybody’s reaction it was a like a Halloween thing.”
Darryl’s injuries were traumatic.
“It was six or eight inches wide. I think I got 30 stitches—both surface and internal. It was so graphic you could see the bone in my head.”
The troubling attack triggered a social media response. Christopher Friesen, a fellow businessman, heard the story and posted it on LinkedIn in hopes of catching the suspects. It’s already been viewed by thousands.
In the video he posted, Friesen calls on the business community to rally around the victim.
“There is no shame in being the victim – the shame is the people who do the abuse who are violent and take out aggression in unprovoked, unasked for ways,” Friesen said. “This is the kind of stuff we need to stand up and take action against.”
Calgary police are investigating and are still on the hunt for the suspects.
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