Posted on 07/25/2018 5:16:49 AM PDT by Johnny Diamond
The quiet sibling from a family often visited by tragedy. A shy young man with few close friends. A mass shooter who does not appear to have been on the radar of either federal national security agencies or provincial law enforcement.
Faisal Hussain, the 29-year-old gunman in Sunday's fatal rampage on the Danforth, had a complicated past replete with family misfortune — including his older brother's drug overdose, which put him in a vegetative state — and mental health challenges including psychosis, his family said.
But if there were warning signs, they weren't foretold in a criminal rap sheet. According to the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General, Hussain has no criminal court files associated with his name. Nor was he in the sights of national security agencies, federal Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale told reporters Tuesday.
Based on what's known so far, there is "no national security connection between this individual and any other national security issue," Goodale said. A senior member of the Ontario Provincial Police, who spoke to the Star on the condition of anonymity, likewise said Hussain was not known to that force.
Hussain did have at least two prior mental health-related interactions with police, according to a source with knowledge of the encounters. However, Toronto police would not confirm whether Hussain was known to them, as there are no public safety reasons to disclose past interactions he may or may not have had, a spokesperson said.
The shooter's family, along with friends and neighbours in Hussain's Thorncliffe Park apartment complex, say they are shocked and devastated by his final act. The mass shooting killed 18-year-old Reese Fallon and 10-year-old girl Julianna Kozis, leaving 13 others injured.
In what Loblaws is calling a "tragic coincidence," Hussain, Fallon and Samantha Price — a young woman who was injured in the shooting — were all employees of the chain, according to an internal email sent Tuesday and obtained by the Star.
Fallon and Price worked out of a Victoria Park location, while Hussain worked in a different Loblaws and a Shoppers Drug Mart store, according to the email.
The shooting, which occurred just after 10 p.m. Sunday, prompted a flood of panicked 911 calls, and Toronto police were on the scene within four minutes, a spokesperson said.
Hussain exchanged gunfire with two Toronto police officers just south of Danforth Ave. He fled and was found dead of a gunshot wound soon after. Police sources have said the gunshot wound was self-inflicted, however the province's police watchdog, the Special Investigations Unit (SIU), has not confirmed the details of his death.
In a statement issued Monday, Hussain's family said he suffered from "severe mental health challenges" and struggled with psychosis and depression. Relatives said they tried their best "to seek help for him throughout his life of struggle and pain," but never imagined the "destructive" path he would choose at the end of his life.
"We've had tragedies in the past in this community, but nothing as devastating as this," said Aamir Sukhera, who was a family friend of Hussain's and is a youth outreach worker with the Thorncliffe community.
"What he did was so horrible, and unfair, and unjust, and it makes me so angry that someone I knew and cared about was capable of something like that."
Sukhera has no idea how Hussain could have got his hands on a gun, particularly since he didn't have any money, Sukhera said.
He said he recently ran into Hussain, who relayed that his hours at work had been reduced, but said he didn't seem upset about it.
Neighbours in Thorncliffe Park described Hussain as quiet, with few close friends. He attended Marc Garneau Collegiate Institute before switching to Victoria Park Collegiate Institute.
His family was struck by tragedy when his sister was killed in a car accident. The event was a turning point for the family, Sukhera said.
Last year brought another blow. Faisal's older brother, Fahad Hussain, suffered a drug overdose last summer and as of January this year remained in a "vegetative" state at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, court records show.
Two years earlier, on July 24, 2015, Fahad was behind the wheel of a rented Hyundai Accent in Saskatoon when police boxed in the vehicle and arrested him and a 22-year-old female companion for allegedly selling crack cocaine. Police seized 26 pieces of individually wrapped cocaine in a Tylenol container weighing 4.72 grams. A summary of the arrest said officers also seized four cellphones that were "ringing off the hook" with people ordering drugs. He had no prior criminal record.
Prosecutors in Saskatchewan agreed to transfer the charges to Ontario, where Fahad, as a condition of his release, was ordered to reside at a Thorncliffe Park address with Faroq and Sutana Hussain.
Back in Toronto, in February 2017, police charged him with possessing ammunition — a shotgun shell — and failing to comply with bail conditions. He was released on Feb. 21 that year on $10,000 bail and ordered to live in Pickering with his surety, a 33-year-old named Maisum Ansari, court records show.
Last September — while Fahad was in a coma — fire crews responded to a carbon monoxide alarm at the Pickering home and alerted police to a suspicious substance in the basement. Durham Regional Police executed a search warrant, finding 33 guns and other prohibited devices, such as overcapacity magazines, and seized 53 kilograms of a substance identified as the deadly street drug carfentanil.
If he was a Jihadi, would they say so? Can we trust the news?
Sounds like a lot of other followers of Islam, to me.
No warning signs? No of course not. Just like no warning signs as thousands of British children are gang-raped.
Moslems are a protected class.
ISIS has claimed him.
are there official records of his alleged mental problems or is it all word of mouth??
ISIS has already claimed him and his shooting as one of theirs.
"Last September ... ... ... Durham Regional Police executed a search warrant, finding 33 guns and other prohibited devices, such as overcapacity magazines, and seized 53 kilograms of a substance identified as the deadly street drug carfentanil."
Bass Pro Shop?.........................
So they found 33 guns in the home. Where could this innocent young man have acquired his?
And 53 KG of carfentanyl? Let’s see, the lethal dose is estimated to be 20 micrograms, so that’s enough to kill everyone in North America, if one were to use it as a weapon (the Russians did try in the theater hostage rescue). You’d think that everyone in that house would be on the radar.
And this guy is out on bail?
None of the explanations for Hussein’s motives are mutually exclusive, but the media would like people to think they are.
It is entirely possible that Hussein was uncontrollably mentally ill, associated (if only peripherally) with terrorists, and mixed up with his brother’s criminal dealings all at the same.
But hey the Toronto Police got there in 4 minutes!!!! No need to CCW with that kind of service!!!!
Life is complicated enough without importing muzzies. The WEST is bent on self destruction.
His friend was an arms dealer, but they can’t figure out how he was able to get a gun, because “he had no money”....
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.