Veteran L.A. Detective Dies in Restaurant Shoot-Out : Homicide: Wounded, he kills his assailant. Russell Kuster was known for work on notorious murder cases.

A Los Angeles police detective who during almost two decades worked some of the most sensational murder cases in Hollywood was shot to death in a fierce gun battle that erupted when he tried to calm an angry, armed man inside a Hollywood restaurant, authorities said Wednesday.

In a strange twist of fate, Detective Russell Kuster had booked his assailant on suspicion of murder eight years ago, and some police officials, grappling with the loss of one of their most experienced homicide detectives, wondered whether Kuster and Bela L. Marko recognized one another in the seconds before they killed each other Tuesday night in the darkened lounge of the Hilltop Hungarian Restaurant.

Kuster was struck by four bullets fired from a 9-millimeter pistol equipped with a special laser that illuminates the target. Marko, an illegal alien from Hungary and a parolee with a long criminal record, was shot at seven times by Kuster.

“Who knows?” said Police Chief Daryl F. Gates, wondering if Kuster remembered Marko when the assailant shot him in the chest. “When you have your heart blown apart like that, you have maybe six seconds to react.”

Gates and other fellow officers found it especially difficult to accept the irony that Kuster, who worked on such notorious cases as the Laurel Canyon murders, the Skid Row slasher and the drug-related death of comedian John Belushi, should himself become a murder statistic in the very precinct he had worked for 19 years.

Hollywood homicide Detective Dennis Kilcoyne, too overcome with grief to discuss his respect for Kuster, managed only to say: “He’s probably the last person on this job you’d think this would happen to.”

David Lambkin, a Hollywood sex crimes detective, said he and Kuster, a Cincinnati Reds fan, watched the baseball playoffs together at another Hollywood nightspot on Tuesday evening, splitting up about 6 p.m. Seven hours later, Lambkin was at the Hilltop Hungarian Restaurant, joining other homicide detectives at the scene of the city’s most recent double shooting.

“There was nothing I could really do,” he said. “I just wanted to find out what happened.”

According to police, the 50-year-old Kuster, who with 24 years on the police force was planning to retire next year and move to Indiana, often patronized the restaurant and was a close friend of its manager-owner, Jeno Bencze. Several officers said birthday parties for Kuster had been held at the Barham Boulevard restaurant, and Kuster went there Tuesday night to see friends who worked at the establishment.

Officials said Marko, 37, who was on parole from Nevada, also occasionally visited the restaurant and was acquainted with some of the employees.

Kuster was off duty when he sat in the lounge area about 9:30 p.m. and heard Marko arguing with Bencze about service in the bar, police said. “The suspect appeared to be under the influence of alcohol and was asked to leave by Bencze,” said Lt. William Hall.

Marko left through a side door, then returned a few minutes later. He immediately began threatening the half-dozen people inside. “The suspect brandished the pistol at patrons in the lounge area, illuminating them with the laser beam,” Hall said.

Kuster rose from his seat and tried to calm the man, police said. He identified himself as a police officer and Marko spun around and began firing, Hall said.

Said Gates: “It happened so quickly. He simply stood up and was trying to reason with this individual.”

Kuster was taken to St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, where he died an hour later. Marko was dead at the scene. He collapsed near the doorway, police said, in an apparent attempt to make it to his car. He had been shot three times with a 9-millimeter pistol; one bullet tore through his head.

Gates described Marko as a career criminal who came to this country illegally in 1981. He said Marko was convicted in 1983 of a narcotics offense solved by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Marko was sent to prison and later paroled and went to Nevada, where he was convicted in December, 1985, for sexual assault, Gates said.

The chief said Marko’s name last surfaced in January, after he again won parole, returned to California and was arrested for burglary in Santa Monica. That case was pending, Gates said.

Most ironic, though, was an October, 1982, murder case in Hollywood in which Kuster approved and signed the booking papers for Marko in the slaying of Steve Szendro, also an illegal alien, police said.

Police Cmdr. William Booth said that Marko and Szendro apparently pulled guns on each other in a Hollywood Hills home, and that Szendro was shot in the head. Marko surrendered the next day, Booth said, and pleaded self-defense.

Exactly how involved Kuster was in the case was uncertain Wednesday. But police said Kuster did read the investigative reports and sign the booking slips approving the case for review by the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.

Booth said the prosecutor’s office determined there was insufficient evidence to file criminal charges against Marko, and the suspect was set free.

Lt. Fred Nixon, another Police Department spokesman, stressed that there appeared to be no connection between that incident and the slayings of Kuster and Marko on Tuesday night.

Gates used the shooting to criticize federal immigration policies that he said do not go far enough in removing illegal aliens who turn to crime in this country.

“Here was a consummate criminal and, as a result, we lost a very fine detective and a very fine man,” the chief said.

“We have in this country a whole bunch of people who are committing crimes and nothing much is being done about it,” the chief said.

But Carol Bara, a U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service spokeswoman, said her agency is deporting criminal aliens once they make parole. She said that in the last year, the agency’s Western regional office, which encompasses California, Arizona, Nevada, Hawaii and Guam, has removed more than 12,000 criminal aliens.

“That’s a pretty good number,” she said. “It shows the success of our program.”

Gates praised Kuster for his bravery, pointing out that several innocent people could have been hurt had the detective not stood up to Marko. In contrast, he said, some officers tend to “stay out of things when they’re off duty.”

“But not a man like Kuster,” the chief said. “He was a consummate police officer. He simply couldn’t walk away from it. And he didn’t.”

In fact, Kuster, who police said is the 165th Los Angeles Police Department officer to be killed either on or off duty since 1907, dealt daily with the consequences of violent confrontations. After years working in homicide, though, he often grew frustrated.

“It never ceases to amaze you,” he said in an interview with The Times in December, 1987. “I mean, God, how can somebody stab someone 90 times? Give me a break. I’ve been here 17 years and you think you’ve seen everything, but they’ll always find a way.”

Throughout the city, flags were lowered to half-staff in memory of the fallen officer, who is survived by his wife, Sue. At the Hollywood police station Wednesday morning, phone calls were coming from police detectives around the country. Officers were passing out black bands to cover their badges in memory of Kuster.

“There was probably no more knowledgeable person in homicide than Russell Kuster,” said Detective Butch Harris, who had worked for the last six years under the veteran detective. “Whatever the question, he had the answer. He knew it all.”

Lt. Bob Ruchhoft said the entire police staff in Hollywood was mourning the loss. “In Hollywood today there are . . . very, very sad people,” he said. “We met this morning and a goodly number of us were truly crying. I feel a remarkable sense of sadness.”

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