With officers already summoned to their bungalow, Kevin Park called 911 moments before he and his wife were shot and killed in a bizarre confrontation with police at a Laguna Beach resort, telling a dispatcher that the couple did not present a threat, according to the police log.
Three minutes after that call was placed Sunday morning from a hotel phone, the dispatcher received the first report of gunfire at the Montage Resort & Spa, the log shows.
"It's my wife. We're not doing anything wrong," Kevin Park told the dispatcher, according to Laguna Beach police Sgt. Jason Kravetz.
Park's words are not the entire conversation between him and the dispatcher, Kravetz said, but rather only what was captured in the log at the time. He declined to elaborate. The police dispatcher keeps a written record of 911 calls with abbreviated notes describing their contents.
The disclosure about the couple's final moments came as the attorney for their three children said they were stung by the criticism hurled by neighbors and relatives in the days since Kevin and Joni Park died.
Their teenage son, who was on the resort grounds but not inside the bungalow when they were shot, and two daughters who left the compound moments before the bullets began flying, are cooperating with the investigation and are confident a more positive image of their parents will emerge, said attorney Harley Bjelland.
"It's tough enough to lose your parents. But the children have had to listen to everyone badmouth them too," Bjelland said. "Every time someone throws a knife at their parents, they feel it."
The children would like to talk about their parents but are honoring the request by police and prosecutors not to disclose details about the case.
"We believe we're doing what's in the best interest of a full and thorough investigation. And we're sticking to it," he said.
Joni Park was strongly criticized by neighbors as a woman preoccupied with status who snapped at them about their choice in roofs and fences and discouraged them from parking their cars near her home. Kevin Park, neighbors said, was more approachable and tried to make things right with people who had clashed with his wife. Joni Park seemed to dominate in the relationship, some neighbors and relatives added, although one of Kevin Park's nephews said he also could be confrontational.
