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The Honolulu Advertiser

Posted at 1:38 p.m., Friday, March 7, 2003

Mark to be arraigned Monday in 2 shootings

By Rod Ohira
Advertiser Staff Writer

Shane Mark will be arraigned Monday before acting Circuit Judge Rhonda Nishimura on murder and attempted-murder charges related to shootings in which a Honolulu police officer was killed on Tuesday and a man wounded on Feb. 1.

Mark, 28, was indicted yesterday on 11 felony counts in connection with the two cases and is being held in lieu of $7 million bail.

Officer Glen Gaspar was killed Tuesday in Kapolei while trying to arrest Mark on warrants charging him with the February drug-related shooting in the parking lot of a church on Moanalua Road.

Mark, who has no local address, went to Kapolei on Tuesday to meet his former girlfriend, Melissa Sennett, at an ice cream shop. Police sources said Sennett was afraid of Mark and was planning to tell him that she was leaving Hawai'i and taking their 9-year-old daughter with her.

At 11 a.m., police received a tip about the meeting, and six members of the Career Criminal Unit had about 45 minutes to respond. Carrying a photo of Mark, the plainclothes unit kept watch over the Baskin-Robbins store at Kapolei Shopping Center for about 20 minutes before Mark's ex-girlfriend, Melissa Sennett, their daughter and Sennett's present boyfriend entered the store, the affidavit said.

For 50 minutes, officers kept an eye on the scene until Mark arrived, waving to Sennett and their daughter from outside the store. Gaspar and another officer approached the store while two other plainclothes detectives drove to the front of the store in an undercover van, the affidavit said.

Police previously have said they had decided not to confront Mark in the parking lot because of the potential threat of a shootout.

When police entered, identified themselves and confronted Mark, Sennett and the child left the store. The officers expected Mark, who was a fugitive wanted in the Feb. 1 shooting, to be armed, but they weren't prepared for such a vicious struggle.

Honolulu Police Chief Lee Donohue has said it took three officers to subdue the 5-foot-6, 150-pound man.

In the affidavit, one of the officers said he saw Gaspar and another officer struggling with Mark. He said he jumped from the van, ran into the store and yelled "police!" as he grabbed Mark and tried to force him to the ground, ordering him to stop fighting. The two men fell to the ground as two shots rang out, the affidavit said.

A moment later, Mark fired a third time and the officer, lying on the ground, heard Gaspar say, "I've been shot." Gaspar's eyes were closed, according to the affidavit.

The officers continued to struggle with Mark, who pointed a small, blue revolver with a wooden grip at two other officers. One of them said he grabbed the gun, pulling it from Mark's hand while the other officer placed handcuffs on Mark, the affidavit said.

Police sources, who asked not to identified because they are not authorized to speak publicly about the case, said that Sennett's present boyfriend was outside the store operating a video camera, but that footage, which has been turned over to prosecutors, did not show what took place inside the store.

Preliminary results from a toxicology test performed at St. Francis Medical Center-West after Mark's arrest Tuesday indicated he may have been under the influence of alcohol and seven drugs, including phencyclidine or PCP, also known as "angel dust," the police sources said. The lab findings also indicated use of crystal methamphetamine, marijuana, cocaine, barbiturates and other drugs, the sources said.

Medical experts say the combination of such drugs is lethal.

"The use of one drug in combination with several others will make all of them slightly more effective and slightly more toxic," said Kathleen Kozak, internist at Straub Clinic & Hospital. "The crazy behavior, the violent activity, the disordered thinking, the hallucinations and delusions, the sudden feeling of agitation and all of those sorts of symptoms ... the worst of those symptoms, are magnified."

People who abuse PCP describe feelings of extra strength, power and invulnerability, reports the National Institute on Drug Abuse, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

"It can make you suddenly break out and be extremely violent," Kozak said. "... It can mimic the symptoms of schizophrenia, like paranoia and disordered thinking."

Kozak said the drug, which is addictive and can produce coma or death in high doses, also is a stimulant.

"It can actually at times increase a person's perception of their strength and allow them to perform actions that they may not normally be able to do," Kozak said.

Donohue said yesterday he is concerned that PCP use is increasing.

Officials at Hina Mauka, the state's largest provider of alcohol- and drug-treatment services, said they only treat people for it occasionally.

"It isn't anything that we see with any common regularity," said M.P. "Andy" Anderson, chief executive of Hina Mauka.