Habits were ‘not normal,’ neighbour says
TORONTO •FaisalHussain, the 29-year-old identified as the gunman in Sunday’s Danforth attack, never took the elevator up to the seventhfloor north Toronto apartment he shared with his parents.
To a neighbour who saw him often, Hussain was a paranoid man with peculiar habits: He exclusively took the stairs. He dressed inappropriately in heavy clothes, as if for the cold, even in summer, always carrying a backpack. He didn’t take transit or ride in a car. He did not have a licence; he walked everywhere.
“He’s not a normal person,” said the neighbour, who asked not to be identified.
Ontario’s police watchdog identified Hussain as the man who strode down a stretch of Toronto’s Greektown Sunday night, killing 18-year-old Reese Fallon and 10-year-old Julianna Kozis and injuring 13 others. Shortly after he was identified, Hussain’s family released a statement saying their son had “severe mental health challenges, struggling with psychosis and depression his entire life.”
Tuesday, the family released a photo of Hussain, dressed in a shirt and tie with a sweater overtop and polished dress shoes. His hands are crossed in front and he looks at the camera with his lips parted, but not in a smile. Police declined to release further details about the gunman, with a spokesman saying the investigation was in its “very earliest stages and it would be completely inappropriate to discuss” how it was going.
Around the Thorncliffe Park apartment Hussain shared with his parents, he would smile in recognition, but rarely spoke to neighbours and did not seem to have friends or romantic interests, the neighbour said. He was not at all religious, declining to participate even in Friday prayers.
The neighbour said the Hussain parents are “really good human beings” saddled with a wave of trouble and grief. Hussain’s father, who suffers from an illness like Parkinson’s, has been in particular decline since their daughter died around five years ago in an accident on the Don Valley Parkway.
Hussain’s twin brother, who had serious plans to be a police officer, has been in a coma for more than a year. It was taking its toll on the family. Neighbours say they visit him in hospital every afternoon.
Faisal had been working at a Loblaws in Leaside and a Shoppers Drug Mart close to his house. Two weeks ago, he told the neighbour he was not letting this interfere with caring for his father.
“Uncle, believe me, I am fully dedicated to my father,” he said, using the common honorific.
A friend and youth worker who helped Hussain get a job said he saw him around the same time — two or three weeks ago — and Hussain mentioned losing hours at work.