Witness details London’s latest shooting as police hunt three suspects

Adriano Oliveira was at his home in east London on Tuesday when he heard a single gunshot.

He looked outside and saw a young man lying on the front lawn across the street and another man nearby on the phone.

“Then I happened to look over and this white car took off like a bat out of hell,” Oliveira said of the vehicle, which was speeding east on Langmuir Drive towards Highbury Avenue.

London Police were responding to a reported shooting around 12:50 p.m. at 1270 Langmuir Ave., in which a man with a gunshot wound was taken to hospital with injuries that were not considered life-threatening, police said.

“The suspicious vehicle fled the apartment before police arrived” Const. said Sandasha Bough.

The day’s shooting — the city’s second in less than a week — sparked a manhunt for the suspects that spanned at least two counties and involved an OPP plane.

The getaway car, a white BMW carrying three suspects, was spotted in Middlesex and Oxford counties, according to an emergency call.

As of Tuesday afternoon, no suspects had been arrested, police said.

A heavy police presence was noted on Langmuir Drive, north-west of Highbury Avenue and Brydges Street, following the shooting at the one-story brick house, where a trail of blood led from the front door to a blood-soaked towel and a piece of clothing on the lawn.

Neighbors say the shooting victim lives with his partner in the house, one of the few rental units on the street.

Oliveira, who originally thought the sound of the gunshot had been made by a work team in the street, said the injured man was conscious until paramedics arrived shortly after police showed up.

“He was just rolling around on the floor there. Man, he was just covered in blood,” Oliveira said, adding that a neighbor rushed over with a towel to stop the bleeding.

Officers searched the street and investigators could be seen speaking to the victim’s partner.

London police on Tuesday were still searching for a suspect in a shooting on Friday in a north-west London car park. Two men were in a car park near Fanshawe Park and Hyde Park streets around 8pm when a man approached them and fired a pistol, injuring one of the men, police said.

Investigators determined it was not a random incident, police said, who urged anyone with information to come forward.

Last year there were 19 cases of gunshots in London, with nine injured.