The Victoria man killed in a single-vehicle crash on Blanshard Street was once a well-known juggler at the Inner Harbour and had recently been trying to get his life together, family and friends say.
Darcy David Cole, 29, died early Saturday when the car he was driving collided with a light standard at Blanshard Street and Cloverdale Avenue about 2:30 a.m. About 30 seconds earlier, a Victoria police officer had spotted the car speeding at the intersection of Quadra Street and Hillside Avenue and tried to pull it over, according to a report given to the Independent Investigations Office, which looks into deaths and injuries that might be police-related.
“I talked to him Friday night. He was at home and in good spirits,” said his mother, Patricia Cole, in tears at her home on Tuesday. “It was the last time he said, ‘I love you.’ ”
Cole didn’t find out about her son’s death until Sunday morning when she got a visit from two officers from the Independent Investigations Office. She, her daughter and grandson had been stuck in traffic near the crash scene Saturday afternoon but had no idea Darcy had died there hours earlier. He was not carrying identification and was later identified by fingerprints, Cole said.
While Darcy had brushes with the law in the past, he had recently become determined to make a fresh start, his mother said. He moved in with his father and started his own window-cleaning business. Previous reports that he was wanted by police at the time of his death were incorrect.
“He had his demons but he was human just like anybody else,” Cole said. “He was an awesome kid.”
She lit up when she described how she took Darcy to the Inner Harbour causeway as a baby in a stroller to watch the jugglers.
“He was totally mesmerized,” she said. One of the performers he loved to watch, known as Red the Juggler, became Darcy’s mentor when he was 12 years old and taught him how to juggle and perform.
Darcy was a familiar face in the Inner Harbour for much of his life and an early entrepreneur. When he was 10, he caught crabs with a trap off Fisherman’s Wharf and sold them to tourists. As a teen, he worked the 24-hour concession stand in the Inner Harbour, sometimes on the night shift. He’d wear a sharp button-up shirt for his juggling shows, which always drew a crowd.
“Everyone knew him down there. Darcy was pretty much raised by the busker community,” said Dan, an acquaintance who didn’t want his last name used. He described Darcy as mischievous, charismatic and gregarious, “a natural performer who reminded me of a young W.C. Fields.”
Friend Katrina Kennedy said she knew Darcy as a “good guy with a big heart.” She met him through his girlfriend a few months ago, and remembers watching him juggle when she was a kid. When she saw him recently at a gathering on Willows Beach, he was happy and teaching friends magic tricks, she said.
Messages of condolence and memories were posted Tuesday to the Facebook page Rest in Peace Darcy Cole, with photos of him juggling, as a child and holding his infant nephew.
As family members dealt with conflicting emotions of grief, anger and disappointment in how Darcy was portrayed in the media, they planned his memorial.
His sister took photos and posters to the intersection where Darcy was killed. His mother worked on the funeral, hoping to have it at the Church of Latter Day Saints, in their Mormon tradition. And his father scoured Darcy’s things to find his last gift to his son — a treasured black Adidas track suit. They hoped to have him cremated in it.
“I still can’t believe this is happening. I keep expecting him to walk in or call,” Patricia Cole said. “He just wanted to have a normal life and now he won’t get that chance.”
The investigation into the crash is ongoing. Once the Independent Investigations Office completes its probe, the findings will be forwarded to the chief civilian director. If the report determines an offence occurred, it will be forwarded to Crown counsel to pursue charges. This is the watchdog’s first investigation in Greater Victoria since being formed last year.
