Article content continued

Photo by Hussain family

The time the SIU is taking — eight weeks later, the unit has still not identified a so-called “subject officer,” meaning any officer who fired at and hit Hussain — you would imagine the scene was as confounding as the murder that so captivated the great fictional detective Hercule Poirot on the Orient Express.

The SIU slow march notwithstanding, the death of the 29-year-old Hussain is no mystery.

But what took him to the point where he left the Thorncliffe Park apartment where he lived with his parents that warm night and headed out to slaughter people remains firmly in the grey shades of a culture that loves only the black and white.

Among the poignant revelations in the ITOs:

When Hussain died, his cell phone was ringing, the name “Home” flashing on the screen. Officers on the scene answered it, and spoke to his parents, arranging for an interview that night. The Post’s Jake Edmiston reported a few days after the shooting that the cell of one of Hussain’s victims, 18-year-old Fallon, was also ringing non-stop as firefighters tried to save her.

The force’s ETF squad, with an explosives dog, entered the family apartment that night, under so-called “exigent” or emergency circumstances, which don’t require a warrant. The dog hit on a sleigh bed, and in one of the drawers under it, the dog “indicated.” Police found a cache of ammunition and some weapons, white powder they believed was cocaine, and an Islamic headdress. The details about the weapons are blacked out by the judge, but a later reference in the document says that “Given the amount of ammunition on hand,” police believed “this occurrence was planned.”

Two days before the shooting, police arrested Hussain for shoplifting; he was released unconditionally. It is one of just two interactions with Toronto officers he had before the shooting, though he had also been stopped by the Ontario Provincial Police for driving with a suspended licence in 2014, and was also an OPP suspect for marijuana trafficking in 2010.

But Hussain did have three earlier encounters with Toronto police, all in May and June of 2010. These were calls for an “emotionally disturbed person” and though there are few details of the circumstances, the ITO affiant, the officer who swore the information, wrote, “Based on reports dating back to 2010, when Faisal Hussain was apprehended because of his level of depression and fascination with death, violence and explosions” to explain why police wanted access to his computer and cell phones.

Several years ago, Hussain’s father confirmed, he had taken Hussain to Pakistan for a family visit. He liked it there, the father said, “because people left him alone here.”

By the time of the final ITO, dated just two days after the shooting, or July 24, the affiant, Det.-Const. Bobbi-Jo McKillop, knew quite a lot about Hussain.

Photo by Facebook; Handout

By then, police had interviewed his parents, his twin brother (who in earlier media reports was always referred to as his older brother), and various witnesses, including one who appears to be one of the two men who followed Hussain as he entered a dead-end alley behind Bowden Street and appeared to be reloading in a practiced manner, and another who saw Hussain stand over Fallon and shoot her multiple times.

The day of the shooting, the twin brother was visiting his parents, and was there when Hussain returned from work. At his mother’s request, the ITO says, “he spoke to Faisal about getting his life together, getting married and getting direction.

“In the past, Faisal has listened to him, but this time he called himself ‘mentally retarded’ numerous times and went to the balcony for a cigarette.” The brother said Hussain had “no real friends,” and while he went to mosque with their dad, he wasn’t devout.

The parents believed he didn’t use drugs, never spoke about guns and certainly had none, had never had a girlfriend and had no mental health issues.