Man describes how suspect fleeing police barges in after midnight

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A London man described how a former friend showed up unexpectedly at his door in the middle of the night, after police allege he blew through an impaired driving checkpoint, crashed into a home and left a loaded gun behind.

The man, who asked not to be identified, said he was watching television inside his townhouse at 711 Pond Mills Rd. in the early hours of Aug. 24 when he heard banging outside.

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“When I came to look to see what was outside to see what that noise was, he was already at my door,” the man said of his former friend. “I haven’t seen him in, like, six years.”

The man went into the home and hid in the basement before police surrounded the home minutes later and ordered the London man and his children out, he said.

The search, involving both London police and the OPP, started at 12:30 a.m. after a driver didn’t stop for a impaired driving checkpoint the OPP had set up on the Highway 401 off-ramp at Veterans Memorial Parkway, police said.

Minutes later, a car crashed through the backyard fence, hit a shed and slammed into the back of a house on Ponds Edge Court, a cul-de-sac near the intersection of Bradley Avenue and Pond Mills Road in London, police said.

Cristian Buragina previously told the Free Press he was sitting at his desk in his bedroom when the house suddenly shook.

“I almost got knocked out of my chair. That’s how big the impact was,” the 22-year-old said. “It’s almost like the house got punched.”

Police found a loaded gun outside the vehicle and determined the car was the same vehicle that evaded the OPP checkpoint, police said.

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Twenty minutes after the crash that caused $100,000 damage, a resident on Pond Mills Road called 911 to report a man tried to break into their home and left a backpack behind, police said.

A suspect was arrested at 3 a.m. following a one-hour standoff and was taken to hospital with injuries from the crash, police said.

Brent Abrams, 42, of London is charged with 16 offences including possession of a firearm contrary to a probation order, careless storage of a firearm, driving while prohibited, failing to stop for police, dangerous driving, mischief, drug possession for the purpose of trafficking and being unlawfully in a dwelling house.

Court documents say the gun involved was a handgun and Abrams was under several lifetime weapons bans stemming from past convictions in a 2019 shooting and a drug case from 2004. Abrams remains in custody and was scheduled to appear in court Tuesday.

The man who lives at the Pond Mills townhouse where the suspect was arrested described him as a friend from the southeast London neighbourhood.

But the man said he had no idea his former friend was on the run from police and doesn’t remember how exactly he ended up inside his home.

“There was just too much going on . . . It was not something at nighttime I was expecting to happen,” he said.

dcarruthers@postmedia.com

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