Man freed on bail after pleading guilty to shooting, robbery

Article content

When a London police officer told Brandon Ford the charges he was facing for a shooting outside a variety store, Ford said he was “super” high and didn’t care.

Now, after spending more than a year in jail, Ford was released on bail Monday after pleading guilty to five charges stemming from the March 2023 shooting and an unrelated armed robbery one month earlier.

Article content

Defence lawyer Keli Mersereau requested Ford, 31, be released on bail ahead of his Aug. 21 sentencing for discharging a firearm, robbery with an offensive weapon, breaching probation and two counts of breaching a release order.

Mersereau acknowledged her client faces “significant” jail time and said bail would allow him to get his affairs in order and spend time with his second daughter who was born while he was in jail.

Ontario Court Justice Kevin McHugh granted Ford bail and ordered him to be fitted with a GPS-tracking bracelet.

An agreed statement of facts detailing Ford’s role in the two violent incidents was read into the record by assistant Crown attorney Andrea Mason during the one-hour hearing Monday.

In the case of the March 1, 2023, shooting, surveillance footage captured Ford arguing with a man outside a convenience store at 2030 Meadowgate Boulevard, east of Highbury Avenue and Commissioners Road, before retrieving a handgun from the trunk of a Hyundai Elantra and pointing it at the man. A third man exited the variety store and attempted to de-escalate the situation, Mason said.

Article content

Article content

Ford got into driver’s seat of the Elantra and drove off with the man who tried to defuse the situation before doing a U-turn and circling past the man he had been arguing with. The surveillance footage didn’t capture the gunfire, but a witness reported hearing a single “pop” coming from inside the car, Mason said.

A London police detective responded to the scene and found the uninjured man inside the store. He was arrested and a loaded handgun found in his jacket pocket, the agreed statement of facts said. The man told the officer that he’d picked the gun up off the ground and reported being shot at but he said he didn’t know if he’d been struck.

The man was unco-operative and said he couldn’t identify either of the men in the car, Mason said.

Police officers went to a London home where Ford was required to live at under a release order and obtained surveillance video from a nearby camera showing Ford pulling the Elantra – its back window missing – into the garage. Ford and several other people were later seen cleaning the interior of the car before he drove it away, Mason said.

Police obtained a search warrant for the home the next day, but Ford wasn’t there. He was later arrested at a Dorchester house. A video showing part of the encounter with London police tactical officers was posted on Ford’s Facebook page.

Article content

After being read his charges, Ford responded: “I don’t give a f***, super high right now, smoked a joint. Yeah, need a good lawyer.”

In an unrelated incident on Feb. 6, 2023, Ford and two men forced their way into a home on William Street in London. Ford was armed with a replica handgun and the two other suspects, whose identities remain unknown, had a baseball bat and knife, Mason said.

The two other suspects tried to tie up a man inside the home, while Ford got into a scuffle with a woman. He knocked a conducted-energy weapon from her hands and fired two blanks from the replica gun, Mason said. The woman wasn’t injured and the man had minor injuries that didn’t require medical treatment.

The three suspects fled after taking $1,000 cash and a 450 grams of cannabis and were last seen driving away in a grey car. Investigators linked Ford, who was under a lifetime weapons ban as the result of a previous conviction, to the robbery after his DNA was found on a bandana retrieved from the scene, Mason said.

Neither Mersereau nor Mason revealed what sentence they will be seeking.

dcarruthers@postmedia.com

Article content