Off-duty Vancouver cop threatened to 'bash' in head of furniture store owner
An off-duty constable with the Vancouver Police Department has been found guilty of making threats against a furniture store owner whose head he threatened to "bash" in.
Deepak Kumar Sood placed dozens of angry phone calls to a Coquitlam furniture business on Jan. 6, 2018, after a dresser he'd purchased there tipped onto his four-year-old son's foot, according to a B.C. provincial court judgment.
During one of those phone calls, Sood said, "I'm coming down to bash your f--king head in," to Gert Knudsen, the owner and CEO of Muse & Merchant Home Collection and ScanDesigns Home Furnishings.
Sood denied making any threats against Knudsen, but Judge Thomas Woods said he didn't believe him.
"His denials are insufficient, even to raise a reasonable doubt on that point," Woods wrote in his March 20 reasons for judgment.
"I am persuaded … beyond a reasonable doubt, that Mr. Sood did tell Gert that he would 'bash his f--king head in.'"
Woods found Sood guilty of a single charge of making threats to cause bodily harm but acquitted Sood of a second count. Sood was also accused of making similar threats against Knudsen's son, Jesse, but the judge said he was not convinced and had concerns about the alleged victim's credibility.
'A great deal of foul and profane language'
The source of Sood's frustration was a 200-pound child's dresser he'd bought from Muse & Merchant in November 2017, according to the judgment. He had the dresser delivered to his home in Surrey and placed it in his son's bedroom.
The dresser came with a mounting kit that could be used to fasten it to the wall and prevent it from toppling but neither Sood nor the delivery team used it, the judgment says.
On the day of the accident, all of the drawers in the dresser were open and Sood's son was standing in front of it. It tipped forward, and one of the drawers came to rest on the little boy's foot, pinning him to the ground.
Sood heard his son crying and freed the boy, whose foot now had a red mark on it. He called the furniture store, insisting that they send a truck to take the dresser away immediately.
Things got heated when he was told a truck wouldn't be available for two more days. Sood admitted to calling the store up to 25 times, though the store's employees said there may have been as many as 50 calls.
"Mr. Sood employed a very aggressive tone and a great deal of foul and profane language. Indeed, he volunteered more than once when giving defence evidence that he behaved, 'like an asshole,'" the judge wrote.
The Knudsens eventually called the police.
VPD spokesperson Sgt. Jason Robillard said a Police Act investigation into Sood's actions that was suspended during his trial will now resume. Robillard said he could not comment further.
Sood is scheduled to be sentenced in provincial court on April 9.
