Police showed IDs
before shootingAn officer disputes
Shane Mark's version
of the arrest events
One of the first two officers who tried to arrest fugitive Shane Mark at the Kapolei Baskin-Robbins earlier this year said officers identified themselves as police at least four times before Mark pulled out a revolver and fired three shots, killing officer Glen Gaspar.
The testimony yesterday came as the state began wrapping up its case against Mark, 29, accused of first-degree murder in Gaspar's death and first-degree attempted murder for pointing his gun at another officer.
Officer Calvin Sung's testimony in Circuit Court disputes Mark's defense, which contends the officers never identified themselves or showed identification when they tried to arrest him. He is expected to return to the stand today.
Mark does not dispute he shot Gaspar, but argues he was defending himself against men he believed were out to get him following a Feb. 1 confrontation in Moanalua where he shot at two men, hitting one.
Gaspar and Sung were part of a six-man plainclothes detail that went to Kapolei Shopping Center shortly before noon on March 4 on a tip that Mark would be there. They were hoping to arrest him in connection with the Feb. 1 shooting.
After entering the ice cream store, Sung said, he and Gaspar nodded at each other, affirming that they both had identified Mark as the man they were seeking to arrest. As they turned toward Mark, Gaspar lifted up his aloha shirt, displaying the police badge clipped to his belt and said, "Can we talk to you for a minute?" Sung testified.
Sung said he also lifted up his shirt, showing the badge. Mark appeared to be looking at their badges at the same time, Sung said.
Mark said something to the effect of "shut up," Sung said.
He saw Mark appear to be reaching toward his right front pocket, so Sung yelled, "Put your hands up, police!" as they grabbed him on opposite sides, believing he was reaching for a weapon.
As he and Gaspar wrestled with Mark to restrain his arms, Mark managed to evade them by crouching and using his left shoulder to push Gaspar away. Although Gaspar yelled twice, "You're under arrest, police," Mark kept resisting, Sung testified.
When the officers managed to pull Mark up, Sung said, he spotted a gun in Mark's right hand, pointing at him and Gaspar.
"Soon as I saw the gun, I was in shock pretty much," Sung said. They had not expected Mark to be armed.
As they continued to try and push Mark to the ground, Sung said he heard two gunshots, one right after the other. He heard a third shot as they and Mark hit the floor.
"I'm trying to push him down to the ground and I see him with a gun in his right hand and index finger on the trigger and he's curling the firearm in my face less than 10 inches away," Sung said.
Sung said he was behind Mark, but Mark had rotated his wrist and pointed the gun toward him. "I felt he was gonna shoot me," Sung said.
Desperate, he began punching Mark in the back and bit his tricep in hopes he would drop the gun, but it had no effect.
With the help of two other officers, they managed to take the gun away, he said. It took three officers to handcuff Mark, who continued to resist.
Gaspar was motionless face-down on the ground, so Sung shook his partner's shoulder. "Glen, Glen ... he wasn't moving," Sung said. He yelled for an ambulance and had to be pulled from his partner's side by other officers, he said.
Sung, who is 6 feet tall and 200 pounds, said he used all the strength he had during the struggle and was physically exhausted afterward, but Mark was "incredibly strong."
"I was struggling to just put his wrist to the ground," Sung said.
None of the officers, except for Lt. William Kato, head of the plainclothes detail, drew their weapons during the confrontation. Kato, who rushed toward Baskin-Robbins after seeing his two officers walk into the store -- the sign that Mark had been spotted -- drew his gun but never fired as he herded store employees, Mark's former girlfriend and her 10-year-old daughter outside to safety.
Melissa Sennett, the mother of Mark's daughter, Shansy, had agreed to let Mark see their daughter at the Kapolei Baskin-Robbins one last time before they left that evening for Kansas, where they live. But she had learned Mark was wanted by police and tipped police off to the location of their meeting so he would be arrested.
Mark had just arrived at the ice cream store and was about to put a necklace around his daughter's neck when two men walked into the store, Sennett said.
She said when one of the men called out "Shane Mark, you need to come with us, you're under arrest," and tried to grab him, Mark responded, "Hey, hey, what the f--!"
He dropped the necklace, reached toward his front pocket and stepped back, Sennett said.
As she grabbed her daughter, who was less than two feet from her father, she heard a "pop, pop."
The last thing she saw before rushing out the door was Mark face down on the ground propping himself up with his arms, the gun in his right hand and looking straight at her. Mark then turned to his left and pointed the gun toward the officer.
"And that's when he shot," Sennett said. "I saw the third shot -- I turned and ran out the store."
During questioning by Deputy Public Defender Debra Loy, Sennett said she initially told police that she didn't know if the officers identified themselves before attempting to grab Mark. But later in that same interview and after being asked repeatedly, she said she remembers the officers doing so.