Victim called 911 shortly before pair were killed by police at resort

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.

“Consider the source,” Bjelland said. “We’re not going to try to go toe-to-toe.... They’re said by people who don’t know them. “The [children] are confident that the real story will be told, and once that story is told, people will see this isn’t the crazy thing the media is making it out to be. They feel their parents will be vindicated.”

Kevin and Joni Park, who owned a small real estate business and lived in Mission Viejo, met with sheriff’s deputies at their home Friday morning to tell them about a dispute over an inheritance from Kevin’s father, who died last month, according to officials. During the meeting, Joni Park provided a name of someone she believed was trying to swindle money from them and might kill them over it, according to an investigator familiar with the case.

Authorities have said they could not substantiate Joni Park’s fears. But her “paranoia” could have driven her to call a family meeting Saturday night in a $2,200-a-night bungalow at the Montage, the investigator said. Joni Park paid for the room in cash, using a fake name during check-in and carrying a semiautomatic handgun, police have said.

On Sunday morning, after several 911 calls from others at the resort about a woman who was walking around with a gun, two police officers arrived on the terrace outside the couple’s open sliding glass door. They saw Joni Park, 48, repeatedly pointing the gun at them, police said. She was wounded after she refused an order to drop the weapon, police said.

Kevin Park, 49, was shot when he picked up the gun and aimed it at the officers, police said. Joni Park was shot dead when she grabbed the gun a second time and raised it at officers, police said. Authorities have not said whether the Parks fired the gun.

It is unclear exactly when Kevin Park made his emergency phone call.

Investigators from the Orange County district attorney’s office are awaiting results of the couple’s autopsies as they try to reconstruct the sequence of events. They are also reviewing audio captured by recorders Laguna Beach officers wear on their gun belts, the 911 dispatch tapes and police radio communications.

christine.hanley@latimes.com

garrett.therolf@latimes.com

Times staff writer Ashley Powers contributed to this report.