The troubled life and death of Faisal Hussain
The 29-year-old man behind deadly shooting had a complicated past, but no known connection with federal security agencies
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,” he said. A senior member of the Ontario Provincial Police, who spoke on condition of anonymity, likewise said Hussain was not known to that force.
Hussain did have at least two prior mental health-related interactions with Toronto 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, alongside 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 scene within four minutes, a spokesperson said.
Hussain exchanged gunfire with two Toronto police officers just south of Danforth Ave., fled, then 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 some- one 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 recently ran into Hussain, who relayed that his hours at work had been reduced, but he didn’t seem upset about it.
Neighbours in Thorncliffe Park described him 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.
Three years before, 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 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 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.
Ansari, who owns the home, was charged with 337 firearmrelated offences. He is out on bail. The Star contacted Ansari through his lawyer, who said his case is still before the courts and has no comment.
Fahad, whose name is also spelled Fahd in court documents, was never convicted of anything and his family did not respond to a request for comment on the charges. The Crown stayed the Toronto charges in September and this past January prosecutors withdrew his Saskatoon drug charges.
Sukhera, the family friend, said he has spoken with Hussain’s other brother, who is a “very strong guy” who doesn’t show a lot of emotion.
“He’s hurting, you know. He has to be strong for his parents — I was like, ‘Your mother needs you right now. You’re her last one.’ ”