Ax Attack, Cane Assault Lands Man in Jail

WARWICK, RI — A 60-year-old threatening three men with a cane during an argument April 10 at 8:54 a.m. at 244 W. Natick Road was unfazed when one of them seized it, resorting to a thrown ax attack at one victim’s head.

The victim ducked and the ax missed, striking the window of his 2014 Ford F-150. The man picked up the ax and walked away toward the Extended Stay Hotel nearby.

Officers Zachary Coyne, Jake Reddy and Brent Giles were initially called to the scene for a reported vandalism in progress, according to Coyne’s report. En route, dispatch updated the report to include the ax attack, describing the aggressor as a man wearing a camouflage jacket.

Coyne arrived to find three men, excited and talking rapidly, who told him the 60-year-old had approached them, waving his cane at them threateningly. One man said that he had allowed the man, Donald Robert Rose, 60, of 252 New London Ave., West Warwick, to stay on his property there for a year and a half, but that the arrangement had not ended amicably, and now encounters with him were usually confrontational.

That morning, the property owner said, Rose had walked onto the property, yelling and swinging his cane in the air. Rose approached them and attempted to strike one of the men in the head with his cane, and the second man took the cane from Rose in an attempt to protect him.

Rose then took an ax out of his pocket and threw it at the head of the man who had seized his cane, who ducked the attack. The ax struck the front passenger’s side window of the property owner’s Ford F-150. Rose retrieved the ax and walked away, and the property owner called 911.

Coyne spoke with the other two men, whose account of the attack matched the property owner’s account. The man who took Rose’s cane said that when Rose threw the ax, he was standing behind the door of the truck and ducked behind it when Rose threw the weapon. He told Coyne he wanted to press charges, and the property owner asked to have Rose issued a no-trespass order for the property.

Giles recovered the ax at the entrance to the Extended Stay parking lot at  245 W. Natick Rd., and he and Reddy later found Rose hiding on the property behind a dumpster at the back of the hotel. Rose admitted to the officers that he had thrown an ax during the incident.

The officers arrested Rose without incident and transported him to Warwick Police Headquarters, 99 Veterans Memorial Drive, where he was charged with felony assault. Rose was arraigned on the charges in Third District Court April 10 and released on $5,000 (@10%  $500.00) bail, with conditions including: a Non-Domestic No Contact Order and a No Trespassing order for 244 West Natick Road. He is next scheduled to appear for a court screening July 15.