A London man out on bail while facing charges following a 2023 shooting has been charged with new offences for allegedly breaking into a hotel room and stealing a vehicle.
A London man out on bail while facing weapons charge following a 2023 shooting has been charged with new offences related to a break-in and vehicle theft.
Jamie Muir, 40, and a woman, 36, are charged with break and enter and motor vehicle theft following a break-in at a hotel room where the keys to a vehicle were taken and the vehicle stolen last week, police said Tuesday.
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A year ago, police had issued an arrest warrant for Muir and asked the public for help finding him, warning he should be considered armed and dangerous, following a shooting in southeast London on March 1, 2023.
Officers responded around 5 a.m. to reported gunfire near Meadowgate Boulevard and Commissioners Road, where they arrested a man and seized a loaded handgun with an over-capacity magazine, police said at the time. Nobody was injured.
Muir turned himself in to police on March 22, 2023, and was charged with occupying a motor vehicle with a firearm. He was released on bail a week later after he pledged $1,000 and his surety pledged $5,000, court records show.
Under his release conditions, Muir was ordered not to leave his home between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., not to contact his co-accused or go near the Circle K variety store on Meadowgate Boulevard and not to possess any weapons, the documents say.
In the recent vehicle-theft case, officers responded on March 8, last Friday, around 9:30 a.m. to a reported disturbance between a man and woman in the area of Wellington Road and Bradley Avenue, where officers were given a description of the pair and the vehicle they driving, police said.
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The empty vehicle, which had been stolen earlier in the day but not yet reported to police, was located nearby. Officers learned that a cab had picked up the couple and soon located the taxi and arrested two suspects and seized the keys to the stolen vehicle, police said.
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Investigators determined the vehicle owner was staying at a hotel where they keys were stolen without his knowledge during a break-in, police said.
Both Muir and the woman charged in the case were released on an undertaking, a document created by either a court or police that places the charged person under certain conditions, a police spokesperson said.
Muir, who also faces unrelated charges of drug possession and possession of property obtained by crime for an alleged incident on Nov. 6, 2022, is scheduled to return to court on April 24.
Also charged in the March 1, 2023, shooting is Brandon Ford, 31, who was arrested the next day by members of the London police emergency response unit at a Dorchester home, where a video of police surrounding the home was livestreamed on Ford’s Facebook page.
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Ford faces 10 charges including discharging a firearm with intent to wound, pointing a firearm, possession of a restricted or prohibited firearm without a licence, occupying a vehicle with a firearm, failing to comply with a release order and breach of probation.
Ford, who was under a weapons ban March 2021 probation order, was denied bail, court records show.
The auto theft charge against Muir comes just one day after London police announced the launch of Project Safe Auto, a campaign to beef up enforcement and boost public awareness surrounding vehicle thefts in the city. Police received $900,000 in funding from the province as part of an Ontario-wide push to crackdown on vehicle theft.
Last year, there were 1,009 reported auto thefts in London, with an estimated value of nearly $15 million.
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