Jury finds pair guilty in Hawai'i Kai shootout

By Johnny Brannon
Advertiser Staff Writer

A man who went on a six-hour shooting spree in Hawai'i Kai last year was convicted in Circuit Court yesterday of first-degree attempted murder and a related firearms charge.

Peter Takeda, 39, faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole, the toughest punishment possible in a Hawai'i court. He faces a separate 20-year term for using a firearm to commit a felony.

The jury that convicted Takeda also found his co-defendant, 26-year-old Gerven Sorino, guilty of felony firearm and ammunition possession charges. He faces 10 years in prison for each of the two counts when the pair are sentenced on Jan. 19.

Prosecutors had charged each man with five counts of first-degree attempted murder for the Aug. 7, 2000 incident in which police officers who responded to the scene were met with a barrage of gunfire. They said Takeda fired more than 100 shots from a sixth-floor apartment.

But Takeda's attorney, Deputy Public Defender Todd Eddins, argued that most of the shots had been fired into the interior of the apartment, and that Takeda had been delusional and had not meant to kill anyone. He said Takeda had also been taking pain medication.

"I'm dumfounded by the verdict," Eddins said. "It's difficult to believe the jury was in the same courtroom as the evidence."

But Deputy Prosecutor Lucianne Khalaf told the jury that more shots were fired every time police officers tried to move at the scene, including once when they tried to escort a teenager to safety. The panel deliberated more than two days.

Sorino's attorney, Nelson Goo, said Sorino had been caught up in the situation unintentionally.

"He was there to help, and things got out of hand," Goo said. "To me he was the real hero here. He tackled Takeda and took the gun out of his hand."

Sorino told police immediately after the incident that he had reloaded two guns that Takeda used; Goo said those statements had been taken out of context unfairly.

Takeda, who attempted to hang himself after his arrest, had been free on bail at the time of the shooting spree while awaiting trial on charges of threatening his sister with a kitchen knife. He had also been in the midst of his second divorce.

Sorino had been convicted of terroristic threatening two years earlier and placed on five years probation. He is not a naturalized U.S. citizen, and could be deported to the Philippines because of his felony convictions yesterday.