‘Like house got punched’: Father, son recount violent crash

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Cristian Buragina was sitting at a desk in his bedroom of his southeast London home when it suddenly shook violently.

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

The commotion awoke Buragina’s father Sam, who ran downstairs from his bedroom and looked outside to see what had rocked their Ponds Edge Court home.

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The father and son soon discovered that a car had plowed through their backyard fence, demolished the shed and crashed into the back of the house.

“We got a brand new air-conditioner, it got pushed right through our basement,” the elder Buragina said of the force from the impact. “He was going full tilt.”

The driver of the white sedan fled after shoving a neighbor who tried to stop him, but returned a short time later to retrieve something from the car, the elder Buragina said.

The father and son had no idea police would soon find a loaded gun at the scene and arrest a man after a one-hour standoff with tactical officers just blocks away.

The dramatic chain of events started on Aug. 24 at 12:30 a.m. on the Highway 401 off-ramp at Veterans Memorial Parkway, where the OPP was conducting an impaired driving checkpoint. A vehicle didn’t stop at the checkpoint and sped away, prompting the OPP to alert London police.

Five minutes later, emergency crews were called to a collision involving a vehicle that had crashed into a house on Ponds Edge Court, a cul-de-sac near the intersection of Bradley Avenue and Pond Mills Road, where investigators found a loaded gun outside the vehicle and determined the same car had fled from the OPP checkpoint, police said.

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A resident on Pond Mills Road, roughly 300 metres from the crash scene, called 911 at 12:50 a.m. to report a man had tried to break into their home and left a backpack behind, police said.

The suspect was finally arrested at 3 a.m. after tactical officers surrounded a home in the 700-block of Pond Mills Road and spent an hour trying to coax him out, police said, adding the man was taken to the hospital for minor injuries from the crash.

In addition to the gun, police also seized about 500 grams of cocaine, a quantity of unidentified pills and a conducted-energy weapon.

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.

Abrams was previously charged with 11 offences following gunfire at a public housing complex at Southdale Road and Millbank Drive on Nov. 24, 2019. Nobody was injured.

He pleaded guilty to discharging a firearm with intent, possession of a prohibited weapon, uttering threats and possession of ammunition while on probation and was sentenced to 50 months in prison and slapped with a lifetime weapons ban, according to court records. Several other charges against him were withdrawn.

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Abrams was one of three men charged with second-degree murder in the death of Mohamed Yusuf, 23, who died in a gunfight outside a Windsor bar on Sept. 27, 2009.

Abrams pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact to manslaughter and was sentenced to five years in prison. Londoner Marvin Anthony Thomas pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to six years in prison.

Abrams was given another lifetime weapons ban stemming from a 2004 drug possession charge that resulted in a sentence of 275 days of pre-trial custody.

He was scheduled to appear Tuesday in a London court.

Back on Ponds Edge Court, workers were busy repairing damage to the Buragina family home of nearly three decades.

This is the second time an out-of-control vehicle has crashed through the backyard, said Sam Buragina, who fears the latest collision may have caused structural damage. “It’s crazy,” he said.

dcarruthers@postmedia.com

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