Five Killed in Deadly Mass Shooting in Toronto Condo
Five people were killed by a terrorist gunman who opened fire on Monday, 19th December, in a condo building in Vaughan, Toronto. The gunman was later killed in an interaction with an officer.
According to the Toronto Sun, the police are currently investigating the scenes within the condo building after they were summoned to the crime scene at around 7:20 pm. They have theorized that the armed man scrambled from unit to unit and attacked six members of the condo board. One of them, however, is hospitalized and expected to survive.
“Once the officers arrived, they were met with a horrendous scene,” Chief Jim MacSween said. “Numerous victims were deceased.”
He said officers eventually found the gunman, and he was killed in “an engagement between the officers and a subject.”
The province’s Special Investigations Unit confirmed the identity of the gunman as 73 year old Francesco Villi.
Villi was reportedly in a legal battle with members of the condo board and a resident of the building, police said. His motive, however, remains unclear. The police later evacuated the building for safety reasons.
While reporting this heinous crime, several media outlets have repeatedly used the word ‘gunman’ while referring to the shooter, a stark difference from how he would have been referenced were he of Middle Eastern background.
Notably, in the last few years in North America specifically, the mass murders caused by gun violence have been majorly carried out by homegrown terrorists, causing intimidation and fear for personal gain. Most of them are later conveniently defined as mentally unstable gunmen, or in this case, an “in-distress killer” softening their public profile.
Whereas mass shootings in Canada are relatively rare compared to neighboring United States, Canadians are now increasingly nervous as such incidents are slowly on the rise, despite Canada having stricter gun laws than the U.S
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