CityNews Rewind 2012: Gunfire rings out in packed Eaton Centre food court

It started like any other spring Saturday at the Eaton Centre, with locals and visitors alike casually strolling and seeking out sales. But in the time it took for a man to pull out a gun and start firing, Toronto’s most-popular shopping mall would become a chaotic crime scene where two were killed and five others injured.

The brazen violence, which made headlines worldwide, happened on June 2 in the mall’s busy lower-level food court.

Police allege Christopher Husbands, 23, spotted two men he had a personal dispute with and began shooting at them.

Click here to read other stories in our CityNews Rewind 2012 series.

Twenty-four-year-old Ahmed Hassan died at the scene. Nixon Nirmalendran, 22, passed away later in hospital. They are believed to be the intended targets.

Husbands and both fatal victims reportedly had ties to a gang called the Sic Thugs, but investigators said the killings weren’t gang-related.

Several bystanders were hit by the indiscriminate hail of bullets.

The most seriously injured was 13-year-old Connor Stevenson, who was shot in the head and underwent emergency surgery. He survived and continues his recovery, recently taking part in a Santa Claus parade in his hometown of Port Hope, Ont.

Others, including a pregnant woman, were trampled by the panicked masses trying to flee the sudden violence.

In an exclusive interview the pregnant woman told CityNews that her unborn child was not harmed, although she continues to deal with the physical and psychological ramifications of that ill-fated day at the mall.

“I thought I was going to lose my baby,” the woman, whose name is under a publication ban, told CityNews. She now suffers backaches and severe anxiety.

“It’s sad that this fear has been put into my life, my son’s life, and the people of Toronto.”

CityNews cameraman James Morrison-Collalto was one of the first members of the media on the scene.

“It was absolute chaos,” he recalled. “I remember a male victim with gunshot wounds to his torso looked me straight in the eye as he passed me. I also saw a younger victim in much worse shape pulled from the mall.

“Everyone all around me were in disbelief as I repeatedly heard people ask, ‘How could this happen here?’”

Husbands surrendered to police two days after the shooting and is facing two counts of first-degree murder and five counts of attempted murder.

The fallout

In the wake of the Eaton Centre shooting Toronto police launched Project Post, which targets gangs in four high-risk communities. The mall violence was also cited when police Chief Bill Blair outlined a compulsory overtime program for his officers as part of a summer safety initiative.

The mandatory OT meant over 300 officers would be available on any given day for neighbourhood patrols to “restore a sense of safety,” Blair said.

While Mayor Rob Ford stressed that the shooting was an isolated incident and Toronto was “a safe city” some councillors took more extreme stances.

Coun. Adam Vaughan called for a ban on bullets, and Coun. Giorgio Mammoliti went as far as to issue a release calling for a return of the death penalty.

“As a city, a province and nation, capital punishment should be something we are talking about,” he said.

The suspect and trial

On the same day that Husbands surrendered to police for the Eaton Centre shootings, it came to light that he was already under court-ordered house arrest for a 2010 sexual assault.

“At the time of the shooting he was charged and on house arrest conditions not to be outside of his residence,” the lead investigator in the case, Det.-Sgt. Brian Borg, said.

A few days later it was revealed that Husbands had worked part-time for the City of Toronto at an after-school program for kids in East York. That prompted city manager Joe Pennachetti to alter hiring practices within the parks and recreation department, requiring all city employees to undergo a police background check before being hired.

Husbands had worked at the Stan Wadlow Clubhouse despite having a 2008 drug conviction and being charged with sexual assault in 2010. He was working there up until two weeks before the shooting.

While in custody for the Eaton Centre shootings, Husbands was sentenced to one year in prison for the sex assault and was placed on the sex offender registry list.

In a phone interview with CityNews, Husbands’ father, Richard, said he believes his son fell in with the wrong crowd after arriving in Toronto from Guyana back in 2000.

Lawyer Dirk Derstine is representing Husbands in the Eaton Centre trial.

A preliminary hearing isn’t expected to begin until late 2013.

“He will be pleading not guilty,” Derstine told CityNews.ca. “We just hope that everyone withholds judgment and listens to the actual evidence.”

Click here to read other stories in our CityNews Rewind 2012 series.

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