A 21-year-old man convicted of attempting to kill a police officer and pointing a gun at another apologized to the officers and to his family for his actions.

"For the hurt and pain I've caused on both sides, I ask for your forgiveness and maybe one day you'll find it in your heart to forgive," said Peter Moses, turning toward officers Laura Chong and John Veneri at the back of the courtroom.

Officer Earl Haskell, who was shot in the abdomen but survived, was not in the courtroom yesterday. Minutes later, Circuit Judge Marie Milks sentenced Moses to the state's highest penalty -- a mandatory term of life in prison without parole for first-degree attempted murder.

Moses shot at the officers while they were trying to arrest him for breaking into a rental car at Makapuu Point more than a year ago. Milks also sentenced Moses to an additional five years for breaking into the rental car. Milks ordered the term be served consecutively to the life term, saying Moses had ample opportunity to reflect on the consequences after he was convicted of breaking into a car in the same area in 1997.

She also ordered him to serve 10 years each for first-degree assault, first-degree escape, first-degree theft and a firearms charge, to be served concurrently with the life term. Moses also received a mandatory five years each on two terroristic threatening charges because he used a semiautomatic gun.

Milks said she disagreed with the defense's argument that Moses didn't choose to use a semiautomatic, which he grabbed from officer Veneri and because it was the only one available to him.

Milks also rejected deputy public defender Debra Loy's argument that no one was killed in the shooting.

But for the gun jamming and the actions by Haskell's fellow officers, graver consequences could have resulted, she said in imposing the mandatory sentence for first-degree attempted murder.

Deputy Prosecutor Rom Trader called Moses an "incredibly dangerous individual" because of the actions that nearly cost the lives of three officers in Sept. 11, 1998. Just three weeks before the shooting, Moses was released from prison after serving time for violating a temporary restraining order. And just three months earlier, he had been granted a deferred acceptance of his guilty plea for the 1997 car break-in.

Haskell, who underwent surgery and was hospitalized for two months, will suffer lifelong complications, Trader said.

Several of Moses' family members wiped away tears during the sentencing. Moses' father later declined to comment.

Loy had argued that Moses has a gentle, kind side and is not the same man he was on Sept. 11, 1998.

While what happened to Haskell was "horrible," she said there was no need for a sentence greater than the mandatory life without parole and asked the court grant a sentence that would run concurrent with his conviction for the 1997 car break-in.

Officer Laura Chong, one of the three officers, said she was satisfied with the sentence but that the lives of her and her fellow officers haven't been the same since the shooting which began as a routine arrest. "It's affected all of us personally and professionally," said Chong, adding she embraces each day and doesn't take things for granted anymore.