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<\/p>\nGosal said he took transit into downtown Vancouver after the argument and had stopped to urinate in an alleyway, where he saw the knife \u201cin good condition\u201d on the ledge of a dumpster.<\/p>\n
\t<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople have been aggressive toward me, especially downtown and on TransLink, and I took it as a sign from God to protect myself,\u201d Gosal told the trial. <\/p>\n
He testified that he pocketed the weapon before walking to the Starbucks patio, where he began smoking a cigar that may have had marijuana in it. <\/p>\n
Gosal said Schmidt swore at him from across the patio, sparking a verbal altercation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was anxious that he might attack me,\u201d Gosal said, adding he felt relieved when Schmidt walked away. <\/p>\n
But, Gosal said, Schmidt then handed the child he was with to a woman before initiating a physical altercation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember trying to push him away more than once,\u201d he said, describing the confrontation as a blur. <\/p>\n
Gosal said he remembered grabbing the knife. <\/p>\n
\u201cI was afraid that I was going to die and I was trying to push him away multiple times and it wasn\u2019t working so I ended up stabbing him,\u201d Gosal said. \u201cI needed to protect myself or else I was going to die.\u201d<\/p>\n
CCTV footage presented earlier at the trial showed the confrontation between the two men that turned physical when Schmidt approached Gosal. Schmidt was stabbed six times in the chest and was left lying in a pool of blood. <\/p>\n
When asked if he wanted to kill anyone that day, Gosal said \u201cno, not at all,\u201d adding that he only learned how many times he had stabbed Schmidt during the trial.<\/p>\n
He testified that after Schmidt fell to the ground, he went inside the Starbucks and called for an ambulance. <\/p>\n
Gosal said he told first responders when they arrived that he had stabbed the man. <\/p>\n
But, he said he later lied to police by telling them he had consumed more beers than he had at lunch and that he had purchased the knife at a store. <\/p>\n
\u201cI thought it would allow me to go home that night,\u201d Gosal said.<\/p>\n
Earlier Tuesday, Gosal\u2019s lawyer Gloria Ng told the court her client suffers from psychosis and schizophrenia and was unmedicated on the day of the killing.<\/p>\n
She said the defence will show through the testimony of Gosal and a psychiatrist that her client did not intend to kill Schmidt and, while he meant to cause harm, he did not have the mental capacity to understand that his actions would cause death.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe question the court has to answer is whether the Crown has established, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Mr. Gosal had the intent to kill Mr. Schmidt, reckless or not,\u201d Ng said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe defence will ultimately ask this court to find Mr. Gosal guilty of manslaughter of Mr. Schmidt, but not guilty of second-degree murder.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gosal told the judge on Tuesday that he had initially been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder and depression in 2014 after he began having hallucinations and delusions. <\/p>\n
He said he believed he was receiving \u201cmessages\u201d from the TV about death, citing cancer and funeral commercials. <\/p>\n
He also recalled hearing the sound of crows and noticing people dressed in the colour white, which he told the court signified death in South Asian culture. <\/p>\n
Gosal said he began worrying that those were signs warning him of harm toward himself or a loved one. <\/p>\n
After he was arrested and brought to the jail, a psychiatrist prescribed a different anti-psychotic medication, which he has taken \u201cevery day since,\u201d Gosal said. <\/p>\n
\u201cI feel much better, the symptoms are less and I feel there has been a big improvement over three years,\u201d he said, noting that while many of his symptoms have lessened, some persist. <\/p>\n
\u201cI can control myself now. I picture a stop sign that says stop and that helps,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Gosal has not yet faced cross-examination. <\/p>\n
Crown prosecutor Karin Blok said on the first day of the trial by judge alone last month that the \u201cprimary issue\u201d was intent and whether it could be proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Gosal intended to cause Schmidt harm that he knew was likely to cause death.<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 3, 2026.<\/p>\n
Brieanna Charlebois, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gosal said he took transit into downtown Vancouver after the argument and had stopped to urinate in an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":513002,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194298],"tags":[879,49,48,2467,2461,2468,2460,2462,2463,44,2464,2465,2466,82,55],"class_list":["post-513001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-vancouver","tag-breaking-news","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-central-vancouver-island","tag-nanaimo","tag-nanaimo-breaking-news","tag-nanaimo-news","tag-nanaimo-news-now","tag-nanaimonewsnow","tag-news","tag-oceanside","tag-parksville","tag-qualicum","tag-sports","tag-vancouver"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=513001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513001\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/513002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=513001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=513001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=513001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}