On Sunday night at about 11:30 p.m., Kitchener Warren was lying in bed in his isolated Ramara Township home, watching television with his girlfriend, when he heard a noise come from the top level of his home.
“I jumped out of bed, ran upstairs and the door was open,” Warren told OrilliaMatters.
Shortly after, Warren heard another noise coming from outside and he glimpsed two people sprinting across his front lawn, headed toward a swamp area across the road.
After realizing the suspects had rifled through various drawers while looking for valuables, Warren called the police, who quickly made their way to the County Road 46 home.
“They were here within five minutes. They could hear the people in the swamp area, so they called for back-up and had the K-9 unit here,” Warren said.
“Once the dogs went into the bush, they were going nuts, just barking like crazy ... you could hear the people yelling and screaming.”
Warren believes he heard police fire 12 rubber bullets, and somebody yell ‘They got a gun,’ or ‘I have a gun.’ At around 3 a.m. on Monday morning, Warren says he received a call from an OPP officer who informed him that the officers and dogs were unable to locate any suspects.
“My brother and I were out on the deck when this was happening and we could hear the police say ‘Stop. Get down.’ You could hear people crying, people yelling at each other, but yet the police say the K-9 unit couldn’t find any tracks,” Warren said.
“I went outside this morning with my neighbour and not even two minutes into our search we found footprints that matched the ones in our house, so I don’t know ... what the hell is happening. There has to be more to the story; there is a big grey area there.”
Orillia OPP Const. Ted Dongelmans confirmed that OPP did respond to the break and enter in Ramara last night.
“We responded quickly with our K-9 unit and emergency response team. They did a K-9 track which was negative. They didn’t find anyone,” he said.
Dongelmans says there is no indication officers had contact with the suspects or shot any rubber bullets. He says the incident is an ongoing investigation, and he asks the public to report any suspicious behaviour that they may have witnessed in the area on Monday night to www.opp.ca/reporting.
Other than being terrified, the shaken residents are unharmed, and they believe everything in their home is accounted for.
“They didn’t take anything that we know of. I think they got spooked and were gone in just a short amount of time,” Warren said.
“It’s still scary, I didn’t get any sleep last night. I spent the entire night looking out the window.”
The incident is even more disturbing and strange because of the isolated area in which the home is located.
“My second closest neighbour is a couple of kilometres down the road. It’s just swamp and bush around here. Things like this never happen here,” Warren said.
To prevent the incident from happening again, the homeowners plan on making sure their doors are locked from now on, and they will be installing cameras.
