Trial of two men begins in Hawai'i Kai standoff

By David Waite
Advertiser Staff Writer

Lawyers for two men accused of trying to gun down three police officers during a six-hour shooting spree last year in Hawai'i Kai told a Circuit Court jury yesterday that neither man intended to hurt anyone.

Peter Takeda, 39, and Gerven Sorino, 26, are each charged with five counts of attempted first-degree murder in connection with an Aug. 7, 2000, incident in which more than 100 shots were fired from a sixth-floor apartment in the Heritage House condominium.

No one was injured during the standoff.

City Deputy Prosecutor Lucianne Khalaf said in her opening statement in the trial before Circuit Judge Karl Sakamoto that police officers responding to a call of shots being fired at the apartment were "met with a barrage of gunfire" and took cover behind parked cars.

Every time the police officers tried to move, including once when they tried to escort a teenage boy to safety, more shots were fired, Khalaf said.

"For more than five hours, Peter Takeda and Gerven Sorino held that community in the grip of terror," Khalaf said.

But Takeda's lawyer, Deputy Public Defender Todd Eddins, said that although Takeda fired more than 100 shots, most of them into the interior of his apartment, he was not intent on trying to kill police officers "or anyone else."

Eddins said Takeda's life was unraveling at the time, and he had become delusional the night of the shooting, fearing that his wife had hired a gang of assassins to shoot him.

"He was not trying to transform himself into a mass murder, a cop killer or killer of any other human being," Eddins said.

Sorino's lawyer, Nelson Goo, told the jury his client made the mistake of going to Takeda's house the night of the shooting after Takeda called Sorino three times pleading for help.

Once Takeda began shooting, Sorino felt trapped, Goo said. After a police sharpshooter fired a bullet that grazed Takeda's neck, Sorino tackled Takeda and yelled at him, "Stop it already!" Goo said.

Sorino was still shaken by the incident when, about an hour after the two surrendered, he told police investigators that he reloaded the .38-caliber revolver and .25-caliber semi-automatic handgun that Takeda used through out the night to fire the shots, Goo said.

He said police detectives "put words in (Sorino's) mouth."

"Gerven Sorino was a victim of circumstances who went there to help a troubled friend," Goo said.

Sorino and Takeda face life in prison without parole, the harshest sentence under Hawai'i law, if convicted of the attempted first-degree murder charges.

Reach David Waite at dwaite@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8030.