Many questions remain about Toronto shooter
It is likely among the most obvious, self-evident conclusions Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has ever reached: Faisal Hussain killed himself.
The 29-year-old was, of course, the fellow who shot up restaurants and patios on The Danforth in the central/ east part of Toronto last July 22, killing a little girl (Julianna Kozis, 10) and a young woman (Reese Fallon, 18) and injuring 13 other people, some left with lasting effect.
What happened was from the get-go pretty much as plain as the nose on your face. Toronto Police co-operated quickly and fully with SIU investigators, as indeed they are bound to do.
The SIU’S mandate is to investigate independently any interaction with police that leaves citizens dead or seriously hurt, and though there have certainly been instances when police co-operation was grudging, or the SIU wasn’t notified by a force as quickly as it would like, that certainly wasn’t the case here.
Toronto Police immediately handed over a 143-page document of 911 calls and police radio transmissions: The civilian callers confirmed that Hussain had shot a woman four times in the back and at least one caller reported, in a 911 operator’s shorthand, “Susp is down — self-inflicted.”
Seven officers — including the two who followed the sound of gunshots and in classic cop fashion ran to danger, finding themselves facing Hussain, who shot at them multiple times — were interviewed by the SIU.
All also handed over their notebooks.
An eighth officer also handed over his notes; the ninth had lost his notebook but the in-car camera system showed he and his partner had arrived after Hussain was dead.
These two officers, presumably, were the two who early on in the SIU investigation were misidentified as “subject officers,” meaning they were in effect suspects, that lost notebook likely triggering the SIU’S collective spidey sense.
The officers were, of course, hiding nothing: Rather, they were relatively late to the scene, and didn’t interact with Hussain before his death — indeed, only the two who returned fire did — as the independent in-car video showed.
One of the other witness officers, No. 7, told the SIU that when he arrived, Hussain’s body was on the sidewalk.
He was on his back, a significant injury to the right side of his head. His ring and pinkie finger were still around the grip of his weapon, a .40-calibre handgun.
That officer moved the handgun away from Hussain, presumably the smart and standard practice until you’re sure a suspect is dead.
On July 24, an autopsy was performed on Hussain’s body, and that very day, the SIU was told the wound appeared “typical of a self-inflicted gunshot wound” and advised that there was a “muzzle stamp” (meaning the weapon was so close to Hussain’s head it left a tell-tale mark) around the entrance wound.
It is unclear from the SIU investigative report issued Wednesday when the 15 civilian witnesses were interviewed, but their accounts “were overwhelmingly consistent with each other” and with the extensive video and forensic evidence.
On July 23, the SIU collected various cartridge cases, a bullet fragment, Hussain’s black Smith and Wesson, an empty magazine and five loaded magazines from the scene, as well as the handguns of the two officers who had fired back at Hussain — these were .40-calibre Glocks — and their other use-offorce equipment.
Later that day, the SIU determined that Officer 2 had discharged his firearm once, while Officer 3 had fired a maximum of three rounds.
Because the SIU was investigating only the police conduct, while the Toronto force was handling the broader investigation, the force asked that its people be allowed to take possession of Hussain’s handgun, promising that they would submit the Hussain weapon to the provincial Centre of Forensic Sciences (CFS) and share the results with the SIU.
On Aug. 8, the SIU submitted the handguns of the two officers who had fired at Hussain, as well as some cartridge cases, to the CFS.
Not until Oct. 4, almost two months later, did the CFS report back with a firearms analysis confirming that one of the cartridge cases was from Officer 3’s gun, another from Officer 2’s weapon, and that a third, a brass-coloured cartridge, came from Hussain’s handgun.
In the end, SIU executive director Tony Loparco was satisfied (this is how they write these things) that “no TPS officer involved committed a criminal offence.
“Indeed, in this case, there is no evidence the responding officers’ actions were anything but commendable in the face of truly perilous circumstances.”
Loparco concluded that “Hussain died at his own hand when he decided to shoot himself …” rather than surrender; that the wound would have “immediately incapacitated” him; and the fact that he was still able to run away from the officers after they shot at him means they didn’t inflict it.
Quite why this took 178 days isn’t clear, though almost two months for the CFS to do its work didn’t help. Loparco wasn’t taking questions Wednesday, as indeed he didn’t deign to return calls or emails throughout.
The SIU has a vital role: Without it, police would investigate situations, including ones where people are killed, where their own are involved. The SIU is the guarantee to citizens that these probes are genuine and thorough, and that police are held to account.
But while the SIU is investigating, police are constrained in what they can tell the public, and in this case, as a result of the recently unsealed search warrant detailing the heavy weaponry found at Hussain’s apartment and his interest in 911 conspiracy theories, among other things, there are a great many unanswered questions about Hussain of significant public interest.
Forces may use SIU involvement as a handy shield to avoid disclosure to the public. But the irony is that the unit itself is now as unaccountable, and as opaque, as police forces themselves were in the bad old days.