Vancouver stabbing victim remembered as 'devoted husband and father'
Vancouver police later charged Inderdeep Singh Gosal, 32, with second-degree murder in the killing. However, the victim's mother says she would like the charge upped to first-degree murder, which requires proof of premeditation.
Tragedy struck a Burnaby, B.C. family on Sunday after a confrontation outside a busy Vancouver Starbucks led to the stabbing death of one man in front of his fiancée and child.
Inderdeep Singh Gosal, 32, repeatedly stabbed Paul Stanley Schmidt, 37, who asked him not to vape near his toddler.
Onlookers captured the graphic incident on scene and posted the video online to Instagram and Twitter.
WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT BELOW:
A full coffee shop and they're all watching?
— Efrain Flores Monsanto 🇨🇦🚛 (@realmonsanto) March 28, 2023
Not to mention, someone is right beside the door behind the window. pic.twitter.com/ZKA4oDho0q
Others flagged down a Vancouver police officer on patrol near the café at around 5:40 p.m. on Sunday, who arrested the suspect inside the Starbucks. According to Vancouver police spokesman Sgt. Steve Addison, the suspect did not resist the arrest.
“This is so wrong what happened,” said the victim’s mother, Kathy Schmidt, on the passing of her son, who succumbed to his injuries outside the Starbucks.
Schmidt said her son’s fiancée, Ashley Umali, told her she was inside getting drinks while Paul and daughter Erica in a stroller waited outside the café at Granville and West Pender streets.
“It all started because [Gosal] was vaping beside the baby. He was trying to protect his daughter,” she said.
Schmidt added that Umali was in shock as she watched the whole thing.
“She’s so devastated,” she said. “I’m angry, and I’m sad.”
Vancouver police later charged Inderdeep Singh Gosal with second-degree murder in the killing. However, Schmidt said she would like the charge upped to first-degree murder, which requires proof of premeditation.
“He had a knife,” she said. “I don’t carry a knife into a coffee shop, do you?”
Investigators do not believe the victim and suspect knew each other and confirmed that Gosal has no prior charges in provincial court databases.
Schmidt is Vancouver’s sixth homicide victim this year.
PPC Leader Maxime Bernier condemned the onlookers who recorded the stabbing and sat idly by as the victim bled out.
“The reactions of those around him made me so angry,” said Bernier in a video posted to social media on Wednesday.
“No one tried to help the victim. No one tried to stop the murder. They all stood by trying to ignore it, or even worse, filming the scene for prestige on social media. Watching this footage broke my heart.”
“What has happened to our nation?” posed the PPC leader. He contends, “the moral fibre of our society is gone.”
“Canada used to be one of the safest countries in the world, but in my lifetime, everything has changed. Even 20 years ago, something like this was unthinkable.”
Bernier claims Canada is “without identity, social cohesion or ethics, or sense of duty to help your fellow man.”
Sean Collings, operations manager of Jiffy Move, a moving company in Burnaby where Schmidt had worked for at least five years, said, “Paul was a great guy and a hard worker,” but above all, “a devoted husband and father.”
Paul’s website included many photos of his young family, and in his intro to the page, he wrote: “I love Ashley and Erica Schmidt.”
Collings said Schmidt worked five days a week and was the sole income earner for his family.
“Someone took my brother’s life yesterday, and another person filmed it instead of calling the police, and worse off, posted it on social media very clearly for views,” posted Jessica Foxx Foto, who said Paul was her stepbrother.
She called the video “incredibly traumatizing” and urged the poster to remove it.
Vancouver Police and Mayor Ken Sim also asked people not to post or repost the video.
“Our hearts go out to Mr. Schmidt and his family — out of respect for them and their loss, please refrain from sharing graphic images or videos of the incident on social media,” tweeted Sim.
A neighbour and friend to the Schmidts' extended family have started a GoFundMe page to support the family, raising nearly $90,000 as of Wednesday at noon MST.
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