Defense Says Gunman Killed Sister’s Boyfriend in Act of Self-Defense : Trial: The attorney says the Newbury Park man had no intent of carrying out his threat when he called a 911 operator.

A man who screamed eight times to 911 operators that he was going to kill his sister’s boyfriend was only trying to get police to the scene and had no intent of carrying out the threat, a defense lawyer told jurors Wednesday at the start of the man’s murder trial.

While the attorney for Todd Richard Love, 27, of Newbury Park insisted during opening statements that his client acted in self-defense when he shot Frank Kish moments after making the recorded threats, the prosecutor painted a different picture--describing the defendant as a murderer who refused the victim’s offer of peace.

“This case is about a man who loses a fistfight and takes his revenge with a .38-caliber revolver,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael K. Frawley told jurors in his opening statement.

Frawley said the fight started after Love complained that Kish’s and his sister’s 15-month-old baby cried too much.

Kish, 31, was shot in the face and abdomen by Love on June 20 during a fight in the Newbury Park residence they shared. He died four days later.

The shooting was recorded on an audiotape of a 911 call that Love placed to the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department, during which he told the dispatcher there was “a maniac in the house” and said repeatedly he was going to kill him.

“I got a gun in my hand and I’m going to kill him because he hit me,” Love told the dispatcher. “I’m going to kill him right now.”

Both sides in the case concede that Love was not armed when he screamed his threats into the phone. Deputy Public Defender Robert A. Dahlstedt said Love made the comments to get police to the scene quickly, but Frawley said those statements were part of the premeditation that elevated the slaying to murder.

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While the dispatcher put Love on hold to make sure officers were en route to the scene, Love retrieved a gun from his room and the shots he fired are heard faintly on the tape.

“Ah, I got you. I got you. You’re dead,” Love shouted, in language laced with expletives.

Dahlstedt told the jury that Love thought he and Kish were resolving some of their problems during a discussion, when suddenly Kish grabbed the defendant by the neck “and threw him on the ground and started pummeling him.”

“He was beaten pretty severely,” Dahlstedt said of Love. “Frank was stronger and Frank was faster and Frank hit Todd a number of times.”

The defense attorney said the beating continued until Love was almost unconscious. Kelly Love, the defendant’s sister and Kish’s girlfriend, tried to stop the fight but was unsuccessful, Dahlstedt said.

With Kish determined to keep the fight going, Love decided to call for help, Dahlstedt said.

“He was begging for the police to get there and get him some help,” he said. “You can hear the desperation in his voice. . . . That’s not the voice of a cold-blooded killer.”

Both Frawley and Dahlstedt played portions of the tape for the jury, but the prosecutor had a different interpretation of the phone call and the fight that led to it.

No one saw the beginning of the fight, but Frawley said it doesn’t matter who threw the first punch because Kish “tried to make peace before the defendant ever went to get his gun.”

“Todd, this has gone too far,” the prosecutor quoted Kish saying just moments before he was killed. “We are family. This has got to stop.”

Love’s response was to refuse to make peace and instead complain that Kish had hurt him, Frawley said.

Frawley said Love called 911 because he wanted revenge by getting Kish arrested. But even before that, the prosecutor said, Love had begun to premeditate the murder.

And even though Love was intoxicated when he killed Kish, the defendant was “a practiced drinker” who could handle his liquor, Frawley said.

“The defendant knew exactly what he was doing,” he said.

Dahlstedt said Love was on his way to a neighbor’s to use the phone when Kish attacked him again.

“Todd, fortunately for him, had a weapon with him,” Dahlstedt said. “ . . . Todd killed because his life was in danger.”