Victim of Vancouver stabbing had asked man not to vape near toddler, says grieving mom
Victim of Vancouver stabbing had asked man not to vape near toddler, says grieving mom
Paul Schmidt was engaged to be married. He’d been with his fiancée for six years and they had a three-year-old daughter together. During a family outing Sunday, the family stopped at a Vancouver Starbucks for coffee. Schmidt never made it home.
Schmidt’s mother, Kathy, is speaking out so people know who her son was.
“I can only stress what a beautiful soul Paul was,” she told CTV News. “Paul was a family man, who lived for his family. (Paul and his fiancé) were two peas in a pod.”
Police say two men got into a verbal altercation at a Starbucks in downtown Vancouver, which escalated into a physical altercation.
Schmidt, 37, was then stabbed and later died in hospital. 32-year-old Inderdeep Singh Gosal is charged with second–degree murder.
Schmidt’s mother believes it started with a simple argument.
“I’m told that this person that attacked him was standing beside the stroller vaping and Paul had asked him, or told him to move, and not smoke in front of her. And that’s how the altercation started.”
“The attacker said to (Schmidt’s fiancée), ‘You better grab your kid. ’And then things escalated from there,” Kathy said.
Vancouver Police Department spokesperson Sgt. Steve Addison wouldn’t comment on the sequence of events, saying the case is still under investigation.
“We know what happened, we know how it happened, right now we’re working on understanding why it happened,” Addison said. “We want to better understand what was happening in the moments that led up to this.”
Graphic, raw video of the incident has been spreading on social media. Addison again repeated his request for people not to share it.
“Let's allow this man to have some dignity in death by not sharing graphic, gruesome video on social media,” he said.
His family is still coming to terms with the shock and grief of losing a loved one so violently, and publicly.
“How could this happen?” Schmidt’s mother asked. “How could anybody just go out for a coffee on a Sunday afternoon and have this happen to them, in what you would think would be a safe place, a safe environment?”
Foreign interference special rapporteur David Johnston has resigned, CTV News has confirmed. In a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Johnston cited the intense politicization of his appointment and work, as the reason for his coming departure.
Fires across the country are burning millions of hectares of land but what does that really look like? CTVNews.ca compared the blazes to some cities and lakes in the country showing just how big they have gotten.
Former U.S. president Donald Trump is facing 37 felony charges related to the mishandling of classified documents, according to an indictment unsealed Friday that alleges that he described a Pentagon 'plan of attack' and shared a classified map related to a military operation.
Former U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson shocked Britain on Friday by quitting as a lawmaker after being told he will be sanctioned for misleading Parliament.
Despite the alarming facts and figures, experts say Canada is far more reactive than it is proactive when it comes to wildfires and they’re calling for a national campaign on wildfire education to better prepare for the future.
Showers are predicted Saturday over the aggressive wildfire threatening Tumbler Ridge, but forecasters say thunderstorms could sweep through the parched region without bringing any rain.
Air Canada says it made a mistake in rejecting some compensation claims from the thousands of travellers affected by delayed flights due to computer malfunctions.
Wildfire officials are sending an additional 20 firefighters to help battle an out-of-control blaze that has burned more than two square kilometres of forest and cut off a major highway on Vancouver Island.
A vehicle detour route that is serving as a lifeline between eastern and western Vancouver Island amid a raging wildfire will be closed for much of the day Friday.
Disturbing new details about a man accused of kidnapping and sexually assaulting women in Calgary have come to light, as court documents exposing accounts from his alleged victims have been unsealed.
Calgary police are warning the public about a high-risk offender who was released into the community on Friday after spending time behind bars for a series of sexual assaults.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith named her new cabinet Friday, about two weeks after her United Conservative Party took the majority of seats in Alberta.
A Vaughan man thought he had done the right thing by equipping his brand new SUV with tracking technology offered by the manufacturer — but when it was stolen, he faced plenty of roadblocks sharing that location with the police chasing after it.
Montreal police (SPVM) stats for 2022 show that crime went up dramatically in 2022 and, taking COVID-19 pandemic numbers into account, violent crimes have been on the rise overall since 2017. In addition, motor vehicle thefts skyrocketed, having more than doubled since pre pandemic years.
A chain of illegal magic mushroom dispensaries in Ontario is determined to open a location in Montreal this summer despite the threat of a crackdown by Mayor Valerie Plante.
Winnipeg police say a woman is in hospital with severe injuries after she was allegedly stabbed by a man in what police describe as a completely random and unprovoked attack.
The head of Saskatoon’s chamber of commerce responding with frustration to the city’s announcement of a $75 million deficit over the next two years — and the tax hikes that will likely be needed to help makeup some of the the shortfall.
Nova Scotia says it has identified more details about the records stolen in a file transfer service cyber attack, impacting teachers, students and health care workers' records.
London, Ont.’s soaring skyline has come with a substantial price tag for local taxpayers. A municipal financial incentive intended to encourage residential construction in downtown London has reimbursed developers millions of dollars to offset development charges in recent years.
A tenant displaced in the downtown Sudbury fire last month said her hotel is denying her request to move her room to a centralized location following an attempted break-in.
About 40 people who say they've been impacted by an increase in crime since the Living Space homeless shelter moved into their neighbourhood have taken their messages to the street.
Police have shut down a section of Highway 401 westbound between Woodstock and Cambridge after a crash involving a transport truck and an Ontario Ministry of Transportation (MTO) vehicle.
The Waterloo Region Integrated Drug Strategy (WRIDS) is sounding the alarm after a significant number of drug overdose and poisonings were reported over the last few days.
