Catherine PorterVerified account

1/After Faisal Hussain opened fire on people enjoying a summer night along the Danforth, a popular strip of Toronto, I tried to get a copy of the police warrant to search his family’s apartment.

2/I wasn’t looking for what they found, per se, but what they expected to find and why.

3/The court system in Canada feels as antiquated as the Old City Hall courthouse. You can’t get any of this stuff on-line. You have to go in person. So I went.

5/The New York Times hired a lawyer to challenge the sealing order. A bunch of other news agencies joined in on the lawsuit. And weeks later, we won.

6/The warrant requests did not show us what we’d hoped for – information about Faisal Hussain's suspected motive, and whether police suspected he was linked to terrorists or not. But they did turn up some grisly details.

7/Like this: One witness saw Faisal Hussain stand over a female victim and shoot her four times. Minutes later, he waved away a man on his path and casually said, “Don’t worry, I’m not going to shoot you.”