WAILUKU — In an interview with a police detective the day after a shooting at a Kula home, suspect Mark A. Martins said he fired at a van and at the ground but wasn't trying to kill anyone.

"I wasn't meant to murder people," Martins said during the tape-recorded question-and-answer session played Monday for a 2nd Circuit Court jury. "I wasn't planning on murdering anybody. I was shooting at the van, OK. Yeah, I might have popped off some rounds by their feet, but if I wanted them all dead, they would have been dead."

Martins, 55, has pleaded not guilty to attempted murder and other charges in connection with the shooting at about 10:30 p.m. on May 2, 2007. Witnesses said shots were fired as eight men were drinking beer and grilling steaks at the top of the driveway outside the home on Kula Highway above Rice Park.

Martins was a tenant on the one-acre property with a cluster of houses owned by the mother of Francis "Randy" Randall. The 45-year-old Randall testified that Martins held a semi-automatic pistol with both hands and pointed it at a seated Randall while firing from 10 to 15 feet away. Randall was treated for gunshot wounds to his left elbow and inner right thigh.

Witnesses said the shooting occurred after Martins asked for vehicles to be moved so he could maneuver his truck out of the driveway earlier in the evening. The owner of a sedan moved it from behind Martins' truck. But Randall refused to move his white van that was parked at an angle next to the truck, saying there was enough room for Martins to reverse.

When he spoke with lead investigator Sgt. John Kaho'ohanohano the next evening, Martins said people at the barbecue swore at him and "started razzing me" when he asked for the vehicles to be moved so he could go to the store.

He said the group was drinking and becoming louder and more belligerent. "This is the way Randy works — he likes to push people's buttons, and he definitely pushed mine that night," Martins said. "They act big and bad and stuff. It's not my fault. They caused it all."

Martins described the Glock pistol he had as a "hamburger maker."

"Nobody would have survived if I was intent on murdering people," he said.

Asked how many shots he thought he had fired, Martins estimated 40 rounds.

After firing shots outside the home using two magazines, Martins said, he went into the residence to reload and fired into a double wall between his residence and Randall's unit. He said he believed no one was inside Randall's unit because he had seen people run and didn't think the full-metal-jacket bullets would go through the wall.

Under questioning by defense attorney Don Wilkerson, Kaho'ohanohano said Martins appeared shocked when the detective reported that Randall had been hit by shots.

"I didn't know I shot him," Martins said on the tape. "I was shooting at the van. The van was the target."

He said he also fired to get people away from him.

Kaho'ohanohano testified that police found 36 spent shell casings outside the home and 17 inside, as well as 44 live 9mm rounds that hadn't been fired. One of the four live rounds found outside the home had a dimple, indicating it had misfired, Kaho'ohanohano said. He said a disassembled Glock pistol and two magazines capable of holding 19 bullets each were found on a table in Martins' home after he gave police permission to search.

Police reported finding 19 bullet holes in the van.

Despite Martins' assertion that he had fired at the ground, no divots or markings made by bullets were found on the ground on the property, Kaho'ohanohano said.

Because the terrain made it difficult to find bullets there, he said police didn't search the pasture behind the main residence that Randall said he ran to as bullets whizzed past him. For the same reason, police didn't search the pasture down the driveway and across Kula Highway from the residence, Kaho'ohanohano said.

In the tape-recorded interview, Martins said the shooting stemmed from ongoing problems during the year and a half he had lived on the property. On April 24, Martins said, he filed a complaint with Maui County about construction work being done without a permit on the property. "That's when they really started ganging up on me," he said.

Asked how he got the gun, Martins replied, "Off the streets."

He said he had paid $250 for the weapon and the two magazines.

When Kaho'ohanohano asked if Martins knew it was illegal to have the gun and high-capacity magazines, he answered, "For me, that's not illegal."

"You have the laws, I don't," Martins said during the interview. "When you work for God, you work under a whole different concept. You are not afraid to die. You live forever.

"I'm sorry this had to happen. But, you know, Randy pushed me into it."

The trial was scheduled to resume today before Judge Joseph Cardoza.