TORONTO — A teenager who took a bullet to the head when a man opened fire at Toronto’s crowded Eaton Centre says he remembers feeling dizzy moments after hearing gunshots go off.
Connor Stevenson told the trial of the man accused in the shooting that he remembers his head feeling warm and that he felt dazed as his mom held him and asked if he had been shot.
Stevenson was 13 at the time of the June 2012 shooting which killed two men and sparked widespread panic at the crowded downtown mall.
His mother, who also testified at the trial today, said her son went stiff and lost consciousness minutes after he was hit.
Jo-Anne Finney said she dove under a table with her two children, and was then attempting to move back towards a pillar when she noticed a pool of blood on the floor.
Finney said she then saw that her son was awake but wasn’t moving, and that he appeared to be bleeding from his head.
At that point, Finney said she asked her son if he had been shot, and put her hand to his head, where she said she felt what appeared to be a bullet.
Christopher Husbands, 25, has pleaded not guilty to two counts of first-degree murder and has denied that he went to the mall with the intention of killing anyone.
He has also pleaded not guilty to five counts of aggravated assault, one of criminal negligence causing bodily harm, and one of recklessly discharging a firearm.
The trial has heard that his lawyer plans to argue that Husbands was responsible for the deaths and injuries that resulted from the shooting but that it was a “chance encounter” with a group of five men that prompted him to open fire.