‘He had this look in his face full of hate — he was trying to kill people — like a dog baring his teeth,’ one witness said
TORONTO — It was a warm summer evening, and people filled the patios and restaurants in Toronto’s lively Greektown neighbourhood, enjoying an ice cream or a late meal. Andrew Mantzios was saying goodbye to friends after stopping for a coffee near Alexander the Great parkette when he spotted a man in a dark baseball hat approaching.
“All of a sudden, he just started shooting,” Mantzios said Monday.
The man fired several shots at a group of people waiting to cross Danforth Avenue. He then turned and fired into a gyros shop and a café next to the parkette’s fountain. Mantzios said someone pushed him to the ground soon after the shooting started, and he thinks that stranger might have saved his life.
“It seemed like he wanted to kill as many people as he could,” he said. “He had this look in his face full of hate — he was trying to kill people — like a dog baring his teeth.”
It was around 10 p.m. Sunday, and according to eyewitness accounts it was the start of a rampage that would span several blocks and claim the lives of 18-year-old Reese Fallon, about to start university, and a 10-year-old girl whose identity has not been released. The shooter, identified by authorities as 29-year-old Faisal Hussain of Toronto, also died following an exchange of gunfire with police. Another 13 people were injured.
Mantzios said he witnessed a woman stumble as she tried to run away. He stopped firing and turned his aim to her, firing two or three times as she lay on the ground. “He went back and finished her off,” Mantzios said.
“Obviously he wanted to do the most damage, kill as many people as he could,” Mantzios said. “He was walking, stopped just a few steps from the corner, started shooting. . .. He went back, shot the woman, then started walking again toward the corner, shooting.”
As recently as five years ago, the stretch of Toronto’s Danforth was home to working-class bars and souvlaki restaurants. But as the boom in Toronto’s housing market spread east, the area has seen the arrival of craft breweries, expensive restaurants and other trappings of gentrification.
It remains, however, a neighbourhood of families. On an average summer Sunday night, the sidewalks are filled with kids and their parents and teens on dates, walking awkwardly hand-in-hand.
The gunshots, initially mistaken for fireworks by many witnesses, shattered that idyllic scene.
Mantzios said the man crossed from the parkette to the south side of Danforth, fired several shots there and reloaded. He then crossed the street again and fired into Demetres, a popular dessert spot. It was near Demetres that an Instagram user filmed a short video showing the bearded man walking briskly along the sidewalk, then turning to his right, raising a handgun and firing at least three shots into the café.
Jeremy and his wife were going home from dinner in the neighbourhood, with his mother and their 14-year-old son, at just about 10 p.m. His mother was driving. She had pulled up on Arundel Avenue, just north of Danforth, when they heard the pops.
They thought at first it must be fireworks. Jeremy, who asked that his last name not be used, got out of the car and walked to the corner, near Pappa’s Grill. And then he saw him: a man running down Danforth, a gun in one hand.
Jeremy yelled at his family to get back in the car. He ran back and jumped in himself. From the car, they saw the man shoot someone at Pappa’s Grill, then go racing through the intersection.
After the gunman was past, Jeremy got out of the car again and walked up to the Danforth. He watched the man rumble down the street and stop in front of a Greek restaurant The man assumed a shooter’s stance — legs spread, two hands on his gun.
Jeremy watched him then “pump off seven or eight shots” into Demetres before continuing down the road. He left what looked like a gun clip on the ground behind him, surrounded by shell casings.
Jeremy said police arrived within about 45 seconds of the first shot he heard. The scene was “complete chaos,” with people fleeing down alleys and side streets.
Rajh Judickson, a chef at Fox and Fiddle, heard gunshots and from the pub’s patio watched hordes of people running away from the gunfire. Confused motorists were passing by, watching the chaos with no idea what was happening. People were lying on the ground, trying to stay clear of the gunfire.
Judickson saw a couple run by, holding hands with their two small children “They were scared, shaking,” he said, and he overheard the parents trying to keep them calm, saying, “Everything is OK, honey.”
Further west on the Danforth, where the gunman had continued his methodical spree, Nick Balkos’s gourmet burger restaurant was closed and he was cleaning up when he heard three or four tight pops. He looked across the street to the Second Cup coffee shop and followed the gaze of customers to see a man with a gun in his hand walking along the sidewalk toward his restaurant.
Seeing it empty, the gunman “just kept on walking,” Balkos said. Then it happened.
“He ran across the street, and he did it like a first-person shooting game, like a Call of Duty kind of thing, where he just pulled it out,” Balkos said. “He was yelling and just, Bam! He unleashed the whole clip.”
Balkos thinks the man hit two or three people on the patio outside Second Cup. “People started scattering, running everywhere.” He believes the man shot one or two more people at Second Cup before he ran toward a tattoo shop and fired again.
Tanya Wilson of Skin Deep Tattoo studio was closing up when she heard gunshots and saw two victims running to her door.
“They had been shot, so I brought them downstairs, put on some gloves and tried to take care of it as best I could,” she told CBC News. “I shut the lights off and locked the doors because I didn’t really know what was going on and I didn’t know if the person would follow them into where they ran.” She said she applied tourniquets to their leg wounds.
From the tattoo studio, the gunman continued west to 7Numbers restaurant at the corner of Danforth and Bowden Street. Kerri Lahey told CBC News she was having dinner on the restaurant’s patio when she heard shots and ran inside. “Then he came in the restaurant, and he shot the girl right in front of me,” she said. Lahey praised police officers for administering first aid and saving the life of the victim, who had been shot in the chest.
He was yelling and just, Bam! He unleashed the whole clip
Jamie Voskuil was at home when he heard gunshots. He went to his garage, which backs onto a laneway just south of Danforth near Bowden. He grabbed a baseball bat and “opened the door like an idiot,” he said.
As the garage door lurched open, Voskuil saw a wave of police officers running past with flashlights and guns drawn. It looked like they were chasing the gunman, he said. He closed the door but through a window saw more police running by, some with dogs, some with rifles.
Monica Hudon, spokeswoman for the police watchdog Special Investigations Unit, said Monday that Hussain exchanged gunfire with two police officers on Bowden Street. He was found dead on Danforth Avenue shortly after.
“How he sustained his injury and what transpired is part of the investigation,” Hudon said, declining to elaborate on whether it was a police shooting or self-inflicted gunshot.
