City man on trial for Lebanon standoff

• Mase's wife said her husband was trying to withdraw from a pain medication addiction when the incident happened.
• During the stand off, Mase told a 9-1-1 dispatcher he had enough guns and ammunition "to take out Canada.”
• One Lebanon city police officer said he feared Mase would shoot at the police if he came out of his house.

Fighting withdrawal from a pain medication addiction, Richard Mase Sr. assaulted his wife over her medicine and threatened to kill any police officers who entered his home during a standoff last year, jurors in his assault trial heard Tuesday.

The panel also heard from police officers sent to the scene who said they worried about being shot after hearing the 61-year-old Mase threaten to kill them and fire two shots from an assault rifle inside his home.

The case will go to the jury on Wednesday in Judge Samuel A. Kline's courtroom after they hear the defense’s case and closing arguments.

Mase, of 109 S. Third St., Lebanon, is on trial on five counts each of aggravated assault and recklessly endangering another person, two of simple assault and one of simple assault. The charges stem from a Nov. 6, 2015 incident at Mase’s home.

Mase, who once served on the Lebanon School Board, was charged with choking his wife, Barbara, and hitting her in the face after she refused to give him her supply of pain medication. She called 9-1-1 and Lebanon city police officers rushed to their home.

Lebanon police standoff nearly turned deadly

Mrs. Mase testified that she has been taking pain medication for back pain. On the afternoon of Nov. 6, her husband was going through withdrawal from pain killers and asked her for her pain medication, Mrs. Mase said. She said her husband had become addicted to pain killers but was trying to quit cold turkey.

She said he was drinking that day because someone told him that the pain of withdrawal would be eased if he drank alcohol. Mrs. Mase said her husband had been drinking for several hours that day, even though he rarely drank alcohol.

He grabbed her by the neck and choked her, she said. He asked her for her pills and slapped her with the back of his hand, Mrs. Mase said. He asked her if she had her pills in her pocket, she said. He reached inside and took them, Mrs. Mase said.

“He wasn’t himself because of what he was going through,” Mrs. Mase, a prosecution witness, told the jury.

The couple has been married for 20 years, Mrs. Mase said, adding she still loves her husband

Questioned by husband’s defense attorney, assistant public defender Caitlin Krause, Mrs. Mase said she knocked the pills out of Mase’s hand when he took them from her pocket.

City police officers Sgt. Eric Sims and James Groy were among the first officers at the scene. They said they were told by 9-1-1 dispatchers that Mase had multiple guns in his house. After the incident ended, police found six handguns, six long guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition in Mase’s house. They found an assault rifle hidden on the third floor of the home.

Sims said he was talking to Groy along the side of the Mase’s house when they heard Mase load the assault rifle. A few minutes later, they heard a gunshot while Mase was on the phone with a 9-1-1 dispatcher. He sounded belligerent and angry, and was screaming, Sims said.

“I got enough (expletive) firepower to take out Canada,” Mase told the 9-1-1 dispatcher. He also told the dispatcher that he had armor-piercing ammunition.

A few minutes after the first gunshot, they heard another one. The shots struck a wall above the front door, according to testimony. The police officers who testified at the trial did not know in what directions Mase was shooting.

Sims said he heard Mase say he did not want to hurt anyone but if any police officers came through the door, he would kill them.

Police did not fire any shots during the standoff, which lasted about two hours hours and kept some neighborhood residents out of their homes.

Standing at the back of the house, Groy talked to Mase and tried to convince him to surrender but he would not come out.

Several police officers testified they feared being shot during the stand off. Lebanon police officer Derek Underkoffler said he feared that at any moment during the stand off that Mase would come out of the house, firing at police.

Mase eventually surrendered after talking to a negotiator from the Lebanon County Emergency Services Unit.

Police said they determined that the rounds fired inside the home did not exit the structure and lodged in a wall above the front door.

Mase was elected to the Lebanon School Board in November 2011. He resigned the following October at the request of other school board members after posting an inflammatory comment about President Barack Obama on his Facebook page. At the time, Mase told the Lebanon Daily News that he regretted the remark and took it off his Facebook page.