Adam Toner has responded to alarms at his Summerside car dealership before – but never in his wildest dreams did he expect to find a scene like what he walked into Sunday night.
“It was just like something out of a movie,” said Toner, who owns Township Chevrolet Buick GMC on Water Street.
“I can’t understand it all really – but it happened.”
Responding to a call from his business’ alarm company, Toner arrived to find someone had driven a car through one of the building’s bay doors and lit a pile of tires on fire.
As he called 911 and surveyed the damage in disbelief, he realized he could hear a truck being driven around the shop’s automotive repair bay.
He watched as a man drove through another door and out onto the lot. Summerside Police arrived on scene and arrested 19-year-old William Eric Rogers, of Summerside.
Toner said he’s grateful for the quick response by police and his staff, many of whom came to work Sunday night to help secure the building against the elements. The business was closed Monday for the Remembrance Day holiday, but many of the staff came in anyway to help clean up what they could. It opened as scheduled Tuesday.
“It could have been much worse. At the end of the day, we could have been standing looking at a pile of ashes,” said Toner.
Rogers is facing seven criminal charges in total, some in relation to the rampage at Township and others in relation to an incident on Nov. 9. The charges include assault, forcible confinement, uttering death threats, motor vehicle theft, breaking and entering, arson – disregard for human life, and arson – damage to property.
He’s scheduled to make a court appearance Wednesday morning.
In their initial press release about this incident, Summerside Police Service indicated that the first vehicle used to ram into Township had been stolen from a second car dealership on South Drive, however, they later issued a clarification stating that it had actually been stolen from Township earlier in the day on Sunday.
