Police have identified a man who died of his injuries in hospital after a shooting inside a restaurant in the Entertainment District on Saturday evening as Simon Giannini, from Toronto.Simon Giannini
A real estate agent fatally shot at a crowded Toronto restaurant on the weekend laughed at his attacker right before bullets were fired, the establishment's owner recounted Monday.
"Ha ha, very funny," Simon Giannini said moments before a gunman started shooting at him, restaurant owner Michael Dabic told reporters.
"He thought it was some joke," Mr. Dabic said.
He said the restaurant has surveillance video of the entire incident and one of his employees was able to record the licence plate of the car the alleged shooter got into before fleeing.
Mr. Giannini was at Michael's on Simcoe, a restaurant in downtown Toronto, on Saturday night with a friend when a man in a hoodie and baseball cap walked inside and briefly looked around, Mr. Dabic said.
Police said Mr. Giannini, a 54-year-old father of two young boys, was targeted.
He had been working with Royal LePage Signature Realty since 2008. According to court documents, Mr. Giannini had been a licensed real estate broker since 1985.
He was involved in a number of business-related civil suits, such as a claim by the commercial real estate broker Cushman & Wakefield that Mr. Giannini and a colleague, Simeon Papailias, owed them commissions in a $13-million transaction. Earlier this year, Mr. Giannini and Mr. Papailias were co-plaintiffs in a litigation seeking $1.3-million from three others realtors, alleging a breach of a loan agreement.
Mr. Giannini separated from his ex-wife, Cozette Dagher Giannini, in 2014 and moved out last year, according to divorce court documents which showed that the split turned acrimonious.
Ms. Dagher Giannini is a former staffer of former Liberal MP and cabinet minister John McCallum. She ran for Toronto city council in 2015, coming in third in ward 39. She also sought unsuccessfully the PC Party of Ontario nomination in Scarborough-Agincourt.
About 140 patrons packed the restaurant at the time of the shooting, Mr. Dabic said, the entire area busy with the Toronto International Film Festival in swing nearby.
Mr. Dabic said one of his managers immediately approached the suspect when he entered the restaurant shortly before 9 p.m. because his clothing didn't fit the upscale restaurant's dress code.
"He said he was just looking for a friend," Mr. Dabic said.
The suspect then strode directly to Mr. Giannini, who was sitting with his back to the approaching man, Mr. Dabic said.
Mr. Dabic's daughter, who works at the restaurant, was standing several metres from the table when she heard Giannini's comments before bullets flew, he said. The man in the hoodie shot twice, then stepped back and shot twice more, he said.
"It lasted 20 seconds," Mr. Dabic said.
Mr. Giannini was rushed to hospital where he was pronounced dead, police said.
Mr. Dabic described a surreal scene shortly after the shooting when speaking with a fire chief from British Columbia who had been sitting at a table near Mr. Giannini.
"He was very calm and he held the victim and he said, 'I felt his last breath,'" Mr. Dabic said.
Meanwhile, Mr. Giannini's friend will return when the restaurant reopens, which might be sometime later this week, Mr. Dabic said.
"He wants to send a message to people like this that he's not afraid and the minute we open he's coming back to sit in the very same spot that he sat," Mr. Dabic said.
The weekend shooting marked the second time the restaurant has seen a shooting in recent years.
Two years ago, two masked men entered the same establishment and shot a man and a woman. Both survived, but suffered serious injuries.
- With files from The Canadian Press and a report from Tu Thanh Ha