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<\/p>\nGosal watched from the prisoner box, dressed in a blue sweater, as Ker read her lengthy ruling describing the 90-second interaction between the two men, that ended with a 28-second physical altercation and Schmidt\u2019s death.<\/p>\n
\t<\/p>\n
Ker said Schmidt was the initial aggressor and video showed Gosal assuming a defensive stance and only opening the knife after Schmidt threw a punch.<\/p>\n
She said Gosal experienced \u201ca moment of panic\u201d and a \u201cfear for his life\u201d during the sudden altercation, on top of being mildly intoxicated and having a mental health disorder. <\/p>\n
Each of those factors alone was not enough for a successful defence but they cumulatively contributed to her ruling, she said.<\/p>\n
Gosal\u2019s lawyers had argued in the judge-alone trial that a manslaughter conviction was more appropriate, saying the attack involved \u201coverreaction due to mental illness\u201d rather than a \u201cdeliberate intent to kill.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Crown prosecutors said they had established Gosal knew his actions could have resulted in Schmidt\u2019s death.<\/p>\n
The judge said she spent a significant amount of time reviewing footage from the \u201cunblinking eye\u201d of two CCTV cameras that recorded the interaction. <\/p>\n
Footage played in court in February showed Schmidt approach Gosal, who was smoking something near the Starbucks entrance.<\/p>\n
Gosal had previously apologized for what happened, saying in court that he \u201cdidn\u2019t want to hurt him that day, but I also wasn\u2019t thinking right. I wasn\u2019t on my medications. I wish I could go back in time.\u201d<\/p>\n
The court heard Gosal has schizophrenia and he testified he had stopped taking his medication about three months before the killing, and believed a knife he said he found in an alley was a \u201csign from God\u201d he needed to protect himself.\u2028<\/p>\n
But the Crown cited several instances of Gosal changing his story, including about buying the knife, exaggerating to police how much alcohol he consumed and presenting psychiatrists with self-serving depictions of his psychological state.<\/p>\n
A hearing will be held later this month to determine a date for sentencing.<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 2, 2026.<\/p>\n
Ashley Joannou, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gosal watched from the prisoner box, dressed in a blue sweater, as Ker read her lengthy ruling describing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":194048,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[214,286,280,287,279,281,282,116,283,284,285,49,95],"class_list":["post-194047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-vancouver","tag-breaking-news","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.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}