SIU details chaos of Vaughan condo mass murder, clears officer who killed gunman

It took just a half-hour between when fire alarms went off at the Bellaria Residences to when a solitary York Regional Police officer confronted and killed 73-year-old gunman Francesco Villi.

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April 18, 2023
Michele Henry

He fired four times. Struck him twice in the torso. But only after he noticed the Beretta semi-automatic pistol in the gunman’s hand -- and only after giving him several chances, over several seconds, to “drop the gun.”

In a striking report clearing a veteran cop of wrongdoing, Ontario’s police watchdog has for the first time given a detailed play-by-play of the horror that unfolded at a luxury condo tower in Vaughan late last year as Francesco Villi, a 73-year-old gunman, roamed its hallways, killing neighbours he believed were out to get him.

The report, released Monday by the province’s Special Investigations Unit, said the gunman, who bought the pistol legally in 2019, raised his arm as if readying to point it at the officer before he was shot. That action leaves no doubt the officer did not have any other choice but to use his gun, SIU Director Joseph Martino found.

“The situation called for the immediate stopping power of a weapon from a distance,” Martino concluded. “Events unfolded so quickly ... that retreat or withdrawal by the (officer) was not possible. Nor was it a viable option given the continuing threat that (the gunman) represented.”

The SIU investigates whenever an officer uses lethal force.

The Vaughan shooting, one of Ontario’s worst mass shootings, began with a fire alarm, the report said, just before 7 p.m. and ended seconds before 7:30.

By then, Villi had already killed five people and wounded another.

Villi’s victims were condo board members Naveed Dada, 59, and Rita Camilleri, 57; Camilleri’s partner, Vittorio Panza, 79; previous condo board member Russell Manock, 75, and his wife, Lorraine, 71. The sixth victim -- Doreen Di Nino, the wife of condo board president John Di Nino -- was shot but survived.

Villi repeatedly feuded with the board in the years leading up to the massacre, making outlandish claims that his future victims were out to get him and acting aggressively in the building’s public areas.

Camilleri, Dada, Russell Manock and John Di Nino were all previously named in a lawsuit filed by Villi that a judge had recently dismissed as “frivolous” and “vexatious.”

The Monday after the shooting, Villi was set to have yet another court date at which the condo corporation was seeking to evict him from his unit.

“We need the court’s help in getting Mr. Villi to stop his campaign of abuse and harassment,” Di Nino wrote in an affidavit. So far, “nothing has worked,”

At one point in a long series of social media posts, Villi claimed the board members were “murdering” him for “self-interest and money.” The years of available court records offer no evidence to support Villi’s claims.

It’s unclear exactly what precipitated Villi’s crime or if he had been planning it.

According to the report, his rampage lasted nearly 30 minutes.

The veteran cop, the SIU said, was one of the first police to arrive at the condo tower, arriving through the lobby and immediately running toward the elevators. When he realized they weren’t working, the report said, he headed for the stairs, intending to search for the gunman floor-by-floor.

Meanwhile, York Regional Police started getting 911 calls about an active shooter at around 7:20 that night. One of the calls, the report said, was from a man who’d been shot and later died. Another call, it said, came from the spouse of the woman who’d been shot after opening the door to her suite and coming face-to-face with the shooter.

It was a little while later, shortly before 7:30 p.m., that the veteran officer found Villi in a hallway, the report said. At first, he didn’t realize he’d found the gunman and thought Villi was just another resident trying to get into his unit.

Then he noticed the man was carrying a gun.

“Hey,” the officer said, calling out to Villi, who turned once he realized the officer was behind him.

The officer didn’t want to shoot Villi and, several times over several seconds, tried to get him to drop the gun, but Villi refused, telling the officer to shoot him. Still, Villi didn’t, the report said, until he raised his right arm -- the arm with the pistol -- as if he was readying to point it at the officer.

Because the officer is not facing criminal charges, he is not named in the report.