Julianna Kozis, 10, identified as second victim in Danforth shooting

Jul 24, 2018 | News

Toronto police have identified Julianna Kozis as the 10-year-old girl who was killed in the Danforth shooting. (HANDOUT/Toronto Police Service)

Matthew Frank

Police identified the 10-year-old girl who died in Sunday’s mass shooting in Toronto’s Greektown as Julianna Kozis, of Markham, Ont., a city just north of Toronto.

“Her family has requested privacy during their time of grief,” police said in a news release issued Tuesday night. Kozis’s family also released a photo of the young girl.

The young girl was with her family at Caffe Demetres in the area when the attack took place. Police have refused to confirm where along the Danforth strip Kozis was shot.

The 18-year-old woman who also died Sunday night along Danforth Avenue had been previously identified as Reese Fallon, of Toronto, an aspiring nurse, who was planning to study nursing at McMaster University in the fall.

Police said the 13 others, ranging in age from 10 to 59 years, were injured and brought to hospital for minor to life-altering injuries. The gunman, identified as Faisal Hussain, 29, was found dead nearby.

He died after an exchange of fire with police, although it is not clear how exactly he died.

An investigation into the exact circumstances around his death has been taken up by the Special Investigations Unit, and a post-mortem was conducted on Tuesday.

Tuesday evening, Hussain’s family released the first image of him through a friend, as further details of the 29-year-old man’s life emerged.

After Hussain’s identity was revealed to the public by the Special Investigations Unit on Monday, his family released a statement expressing their condolences to the victims and their families, and highlighting their son’s long history of psychosis and depression

“The interventions of professionals were unsuccessful. Medications and therapy were unable to treat him,” the family wrote. “While we did our best to seek help for him throughout his life of struggle and pain, we could never imagine that this would be his devastating and destructive end.”

The shooting has set off a debate about gun control in Canada’s largest city and across the country. Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale has said that the federal government was already considering changes to Canada’s gun laws prior to Sunday’s attack.

Toronto city councillors voted Tuesday in favour of a number of initiatives aimed at curbing gun violence, including hiring 100 new police officers, installing new security cameras and gunshot-detecting microphones in the city, and increasing funding for youth and mental health initiatives.Councillors also voted to request that the provincial and federal governments ban the sale of handguns and ammunition in Toronto. Mayor John Tory has suggested that he would be in favour of stricter regulations, commenting that he does not see any reason for anybody to possess a gun in Toronto.

“Why does anyone in Toronto need a gun?” John Tory asked at a city council meeting Monday morning.

Last week, the Toronto Police deployed an additional 200 officers to patrol the streets on evenings and on weekends throughout the summer.

Local media CBC News and Global News reported on Tuesday that Hussain was known to police before the Sunday night shooting when he was apprehended twice by officers over mental health concerns when he was a minor under the age of 18.

Toronto Police spokesperson Meaghan Gray could not officially confirm in an email that “notwithstanding issues of privacy that still apply to a deceased person, we have no public safety reason to disclose any past interactions Mr. Hussain may or may not have had with the Toronto Police Service.”

The motive of Sunday night’s mass shooting is still unknown. Toronto police continue to investigate, while the Special Investigations Unit continues its probe of Hussain’s death.

Residents of the Thorncliffe Park Drive apartment building where Hussain lived with his parents said the family was also grappling with another son in the hospital due to a coma. Hussain’s father has Parkinson’s, and his sister died in a car accident years ago.

Toronto police are carrying out their own investigation into the attack and executed a search of Hussain’s apartment on Tuesday.

The motive of Sunday night’s mass shooting is still unknown. Toronto police continue to investigate, while the Special Investigations Unit continues its probe of Hussain’s death.