1991 Sacramento hostage crisis
Encyclopedia
The 1991 Sacramento Hostage Crisis occurred on April 4, 1991, in Sacramento, California
, United States
, in which four people took hostages at a Good Guys!
Electronics store located near the old Florin Mall
. During the incident, three hostages as well as three of the four hostage-takers were killed. An additional fourteen hostages were injured during the crisis. To this date, the situation remains the largest hostage rescue operation in U.S. history, with over 50 hostages being held at gunpoint.
refugees, brothers Loi Khac Nguyen, 21, Pham Khac Nguyen, 19, and Long Khac Nguyen, 17, and their friend, Cuong Tran, 17, drove into the parking lot of The Good Guys! Electronics store, in the South Area of Sacramento County
, after botching a robbery at a different location. The group left their vehicle, a 1982 Toyota Corolla
, and entered the store armed with three pistols and a shotgun. They herded customers and staff into a group, including a shoplifter
attempting to leave the store, and began shooting. Several customers managed to escape and alerted police to the situation.
As the situation developed, the local media descended on the area in force, broadcasting the unfolding incident. They were able to get footage of the event because of the store's huge glass front doors, which allowed video crews to see into the store where the hostage takers lined up some of the hostages in front of the entrance as human shields.
One of the entry team members removed a ceiling panel in the hallway between the two buildings and inserted a pole-mounted mirror. He was able to observe the subjects directing hostages to place large boxes against the back door to block entry. Once the door was barricaded, the area was abandoned. A fisheye
camera was installed by the team but was of limited use because of the design of the store, showing only a portion of the showroom near the door. By this time, the hostages had been tied up with speaker wire and had been arranged inside the store's glass front entrance doors in standing and kneeling positions.
For more than two hours, the department's CINT tried to end the incident peacefully by negotiating with the hostage takers. The hostage takers began to make various demands from $4 million to forty 1,000-year-old ginseng
roots, to a 50-troop military helicopter
, to transporting everyone to Thailand
after a refueling stop in Alaska
. Throughout the incident, the hostage takers did not present a clear set of demands to the negotiators.
One demand that remained constant was the request for bulletproof vest
s. The vests were obtained by the police, and one was exchanged for several hostages. Another benefit of the exchange was that it allowed police to gain information on the current situation in the store. One of the released hostages revealed that the shots heard earlier had been the hostage takers shooting at the store's security cameras, and that none of the hostages had been harmed up to this point. Soon thereafter, more shots were heard, but this was the hostage takers testing the vest.
At one point during the negotiations, the negotiator for the hostage takers, who called himself "Thai", agreed to surrender to the police, but only if they were allowed to retain their bulletproof vests and weapons while in prison. He set down the phone and began to discuss the situation with his partners. By this point, many of the officers involved felt that the exchanges might lead to a negotiated settlement. Suddenly, the phone went dead, and the CINT immediately tried to re-establish contact with the store. On the first attempt, the phone was busy, and on the second attempt a suspect calling himself "Number One" answered the phone, informing everyone that he was now in control. From that point on, the situation began to rapidly deteriorate. Shots were once again fired at the store's security cameras.
mission. At one point, the police attempted to have all the subjects move to the television area of the store by putting the hostage on the news, but unfortunately this tactic did not work, and the team was finally given the "green light". Sniper
Jeffrey Boyes would issue the signal to execute the assault. Boyes had received permission to fire on any subject on whom he could obtain a clear line of sight.
Shortly after the hostage was shot in the leg, the decision was made to move in. A second bullet-proof vest was delivered to the front door and a female hostage was sent out to recover it, with her wrists tied behind her and harnessed with more speaker cord. While this was happening, guns were placed to the hostages' heads. Another hostage was placed on the phone, and he informed the police that the subjects were going to begin executing hostages.
As the door was opened and the woman was halfway down the path to retrieve the vest, Boyce was able to line up the perfect shot of "Number One", and he fired with a .308 Win 168-grain HPBT. The bullet was deflected by the glass door as it swung shut. The failure to hit the target was judged to be, at least in part, due to deflection resulting from the door.
Immediately, the hostage takers ran back and forth, shooting at the seated hostages who were tied down in a row behind the glass door, in full view of the news cameras broadcasting the event live. Boyes radioed "Go", and the SED entry team immediately hit the door. A stun grenade was tossed into the store from outside, and Curt Warburton, one of the Good Guys employees, managed to scramble to safety through the now shattered glass door. "Number One", now stunned and disoriented, managed to stagger out of Boyes's sights and take cover behind a large pillar. He then immediately began firing his weapon at more bound hostages.
It took the entry team two to three seconds to gain entry through the back door of the building because of the barricades erected earlier. They then had to contend with the 100-foot distance to the front of the store. The team was armed with a variety of weapons for the entry. Sgt. Devlin, Price, and Smith were armed with SiGARMS Sig P220
pistols, Kelly carried a laser-sighted HK MP5, and investigators Hammel and Peterson carried H&K MP5SD3s. Stanfill was still armed with his AR-15
.
Hammel and Price cleared the west side of the store, Peterson and Kelly the east side, with Devlin and Smith going straight up the middle. Stanfill took up a rear guard position. As the team began its movement toward the front of the store, the remaining hostage takers immediately began to fire on the entry team and hostages. Peterson stepped on the wire that had been used to tether the female hostage sent out to recover the second vest. At that very moment, she was snatched to safety by officers outside the store, causing Peterson's feet to fly out from under him, forcing him to fall backwards, just as a shotgun blast immediately blew through the area where he was standing. His fellow team members mistakenly believed he had been struck in the face by the blast. As Peterson began to rise to his feet, Devlin and Kelly tried to flank the shotgun wielding suspect who fired on them once again, before being taken under fire by the team.
At this point, the team could only account for three of the suspects, and immediately began a systematic search for the fourth. Price and Hamell discovered an unarmed Asian male wearing a vest and lying on the floor. Once he was rolled over, they discovered he had a .223 caliber entrance wound, accounting for all four suspects.
When the case went to trial, Judge W.J. Harpham remarked, "It's hard to find the adjectives for the terror the defendant put these hostages through." He sentenced Loi Khac Nguyen to 49 consecutive life terms in prison. He was convicted of three counts of murder—for Kris Edward Sohne, John Fritz and Fernando Gutierrez—and 38 counts of kidnapping. Nguyen is currently serving his consecutive life sentences at the California State Prison, Lancaster
.
Today the former Good Guys building still stands, as a Dollar Tree
slightly changed with the doors on the side of the building as opposed to the front.
The incident is also examined in detail in the first season of the documentary series Shootout!
produced by The History Channel
.
Sacramento, California
Sacramento is the capital city of the U.S. state of California and the county seat of Sacramento County. It is located at the confluence of the Sacramento River and the American River in the northern portion of California's expansive Central Valley. With a population of 466,488 at the 2010 census,...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, in which four people took hostages at a Good Guys!
The Good Guys!
Good Guys was a chain of consumer electronics retail stores with 71 stores in California, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington. The company was headquartered in Brisbane, California in the Dakin Building in the early-1990s and subsequently in Alameda, California until it was bought in late 2003 by...
Electronics store located near the old Florin Mall
Florin Mall
Florin Mall was an indoor shopping mall located on Florin Road in the community of Florin in Sacramento, California. The mall was torn down in 2006 to make way for Florin Towne Centre, an outdoor shopping center.-History:...
. During the incident, three hostages as well as three of the four hostage-takers were killed. An additional fourteen hostages were injured during the crisis. To this date, the situation remains the largest hostage rescue operation in U.S. history, with over 50 hostages being held at gunpoint.
Background
Just before 2:00 pm on April 4, 1991, four young VietnameseVietnamese people
The Vietnamese people are an ethnic group originating from present-day northern Vietnam and southern China. They are the majority ethnic group of Vietnam, comprising 86% of the population as of the 1999 census, and are officially known as Kinh to distinguish them from other ethnic groups in Vietnam...
refugees, brothers Loi Khac Nguyen, 21, Pham Khac Nguyen, 19, and Long Khac Nguyen, 17, and their friend, Cuong Tran, 17, drove into the parking lot of The Good Guys! Electronics store, in the South Area of Sacramento County
Sacramento County, California
Sacramento County is a county in the U.S. state of California. Its county seat is Sacramento, which is also the state capital. As of 2010 the county had a population of 1,418,788....
, after botching a robbery at a different location. The group left their vehicle, a 1982 Toyota Corolla
Toyota Corolla
The Toyota Corolla is a line of subcompact and compact cars manufactured by the Japanese automaker Toyota, which has become very popular throughout the world since the nameplate was first introduced in 1966. In 1997, the Corolla became the best selling nameplate in the world, with over 35 million...
, and entered the store armed with three pistols and a shotgun. They herded customers and staff into a group, including a shoplifter
Shoplifting
Shoplifting is theft of goods from a retail establishment. It is one of the most common property crimes dealt with by police and courts....
attempting to leave the store, and began shooting. Several customers managed to escape and alerted police to the situation.
Police and media
When the call came in at 13:35, the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department Special Enforcement Detail (SED) was already in the process of gearing up in anticipation of executing a previously planned drug raid. They immediately paged off-duty team members, and began preparations to rush to the scene along with the Department's Critical Incident Negotiations Team (CINT) and other local and state law enforcement agencies.As the situation developed, the local media descended on the area in force, broadcasting the unfolding incident. They were able to get footage of the event because of the store's huge glass front doors, which allowed video crews to see into the store where the hostage takers lined up some of the hostages in front of the entrance as human shields.
Surveillance and negotiation
In accordance with standard operating procedure, the team obtained a floor plan of the building, which was copied and distributed to team members. The SED team was told that there was only one entrance to the store which was not alarmed: a freight entrance located at the rear of the store. Their only option would be to enter the hostage zone through a fabrics store on the north side of the building. The entry team gained entrance to the fabric store, and slowly moved into position. The criminals apparently heard movement by the police amid shouts of "stay away from the door" coming from inside the store itself.One of the entry team members removed a ceiling panel in the hallway between the two buildings and inserted a pole-mounted mirror. He was able to observe the subjects directing hostages to place large boxes against the back door to block entry. Once the door was barricaded, the area was abandoned. A fisheye
Fisheye lens
In photography, a fisheye lens is a wide-angle lens that takes in a broad, panoramic and hemispherical image. Originally developed for use in meteorology to study cloud formation and called "whole-sky lenses", fisheye lenses quickly became popular in general photography for their unique, distorted...
camera was installed by the team but was of limited use because of the design of the store, showing only a portion of the showroom near the door. By this time, the hostages had been tied up with speaker wire and had been arranged inside the store's glass front entrance doors in standing and kneeling positions.
For more than two hours, the department's CINT tried to end the incident peacefully by negotiating with the hostage takers. The hostage takers began to make various demands from $4 million to forty 1,000-year-old ginseng
Ginseng
Ginseng is any one of eleven species of slow-growing perennial plants with fleshy roots, belonging to the genus Panax of the family Araliaceae....
roots, to a 50-troop military helicopter
Helicopter
A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by one or more engine-driven rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forwards, backwards, and laterally...
, to transporting everyone to Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
after a refueling stop in Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
. Throughout the incident, the hostage takers did not present a clear set of demands to the negotiators.
One demand that remained constant was the request for bulletproof vest
Bulletproof vest
A ballistic vest, bulletproof vest or bullet-resistant vest is an item of personal armor that helps absorb the impact from firearm-fired projectiles and shrapnel from explosions, and is worn on the torso...
s. The vests were obtained by the police, and one was exchanged for several hostages. Another benefit of the exchange was that it allowed police to gain information on the current situation in the store. One of the released hostages revealed that the shots heard earlier had been the hostage takers shooting at the store's security cameras, and that none of the hostages had been harmed up to this point. Soon thereafter, more shots were heard, but this was the hostage takers testing the vest.
At one point during the negotiations, the negotiator for the hostage takers, who called himself "Thai", agreed to surrender to the police, but only if they were allowed to retain their bulletproof vests and weapons while in prison. He set down the phone and began to discuss the situation with his partners. By this point, many of the officers involved felt that the exchanges might lead to a negotiated settlement. Suddenly, the phone went dead, and the CINT immediately tried to re-establish contact with the store. On the first attempt, the phone was busy, and on the second attempt a suspect calling himself "Number One" answered the phone, informing everyone that he was now in control. From that point on, the situation began to rapidly deteriorate. Shots were once again fired at the store's security cameras.
Entry
Approximately eight hours into the incident, the subjects shot a twenty-year-old male hostage in the leg at his request in exchange for his freedom. All he had to do was deliver the gang's message and plight to the local media. They claimed they were trying to draw attention to the troubles of their home country and that they were on a suicideSuicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
mission. At one point, the police attempted to have all the subjects move to the television area of the store by putting the hostage on the news, but unfortunately this tactic did not work, and the team was finally given the "green light". Sniper
Sniper
A sniper is a marksman who shoots targets from concealed positions or distances exceeding the capabilities of regular personnel. Snipers typically have specialized training and distinct high-precision rifles....
Jeffrey Boyes would issue the signal to execute the assault. Boyes had received permission to fire on any subject on whom he could obtain a clear line of sight.
Shortly after the hostage was shot in the leg, the decision was made to move in. A second bullet-proof vest was delivered to the front door and a female hostage was sent out to recover it, with her wrists tied behind her and harnessed with more speaker cord. While this was happening, guns were placed to the hostages' heads. Another hostage was placed on the phone, and he informed the police that the subjects were going to begin executing hostages.
As the door was opened and the woman was halfway down the path to retrieve the vest, Boyce was able to line up the perfect shot of "Number One", and he fired with a .308 Win 168-grain HPBT. The bullet was deflected by the glass door as it swung shut. The failure to hit the target was judged to be, at least in part, due to deflection resulting from the door.
Immediately, the hostage takers ran back and forth, shooting at the seated hostages who were tied down in a row behind the glass door, in full view of the news cameras broadcasting the event live. Boyes radioed "Go", and the SED entry team immediately hit the door. A stun grenade was tossed into the store from outside, and Curt Warburton, one of the Good Guys employees, managed to scramble to safety through the now shattered glass door. "Number One", now stunned and disoriented, managed to stagger out of Boyes's sights and take cover behind a large pillar. He then immediately began firing his weapon at more bound hostages.
It took the entry team two to three seconds to gain entry through the back door of the building because of the barricades erected earlier. They then had to contend with the 100-foot distance to the front of the store. The team was armed with a variety of weapons for the entry. Sgt. Devlin, Price, and Smith were armed with SiGARMS Sig P220
SIG P220
The SIG P220 is a semi-automatic pistol designed in Switzerland by Swiss Arms AG . It is manufactured in Eckernförde, Germany, by J.P. Sauer und Sohn GmbH. It uses the Browning linkless cam short recoil action of self-loading with a double action trigger mechanism...
pistols, Kelly carried a laser-sighted HK MP5, and investigators Hammel and Peterson carried H&K MP5SD3s. Stanfill was still armed with his AR-15
AR-15
The AR-15 is a lightweight, 5.56 mm, air-cooled, gas-operated, magazine-fed semi-automatic rifle, with a rotating-lock bolt, actuated by direct impingement gas operation. It is manufactured with the extensive use of aluminum alloys and synthetic materials....
.
Hammel and Price cleared the west side of the store, Peterson and Kelly the east side, with Devlin and Smith going straight up the middle. Stanfill took up a rear guard position. As the team began its movement toward the front of the store, the remaining hostage takers immediately began to fire on the entry team and hostages. Peterson stepped on the wire that had been used to tether the female hostage sent out to recover the second vest. At that very moment, she was snatched to safety by officers outside the store, causing Peterson's feet to fly out from under him, forcing him to fall backwards, just as a shotgun blast immediately blew through the area where he was standing. His fellow team members mistakenly believed he had been struck in the face by the blast. As Peterson began to rise to his feet, Devlin and Kelly tried to flank the shotgun wielding suspect who fired on them once again, before being taken under fire by the team.
Neutralization
Simultaneously, on the west side of the store, the team took out one of the suspects before he could react, and then spotted a second armed suspect and fired on him, but he disappeared into the chaos of the screaming and panicking crowd of hostages. Then, "Number One" was shot.At this point, the team could only account for three of the suspects, and immediately began a systematic search for the fourth. Price and Hamell discovered an unarmed Asian male wearing a vest and lying on the floor. Once he was rolled over, they discovered he had a .223 caliber entrance wound, accounting for all four suspects.
Fernando Gutierrez
One of the victims of the crisis was 28 year old Fernando Gutierrez, a resident of Sacramento, who was shot in the back by one of the assailants. Within days following the event, his family expressed outrage over authorities' handling of the situation, planning to sue the department for "incompetence and negligence." however, a subsequent search of the dead hostage's body revealed that he had several pieces of merchandise hidden on his person at the time of the shooting, possibly indicating his intention to shoplift. Shortly after this was revealed to Gutierrez' family, the family stopped pursuing their case against the Sheriff's Department.Injuries and aftermath
During the assault, the suspects wounded eleven hostages and killed three. Three other hostages were injured by broken glass. Of the four suspects, three were killed by the entry team and one, "Thai", was wounded. None of the SED entry team was wounded. Dead were store employees Kris Edward Sohne and John Lee Fritz, and customer Fernando Gutierrez. Gutierrez's niece, Lisa Joseph, was also a hostage. She later wrote the book Heads or Tails: A True Hostage Story of Terror, Torture and Ultimate Survival about her ordeal.When the case went to trial, Judge W.J. Harpham remarked, "It's hard to find the adjectives for the terror the defendant put these hostages through." He sentenced Loi Khac Nguyen to 49 consecutive life terms in prison. He was convicted of three counts of murder—for Kris Edward Sohne, John Fritz and Fernando Gutierrez—and 38 counts of kidnapping. Nguyen is currently serving his consecutive life sentences at the California State Prison, Lancaster
California State Prison, Los Angeles County
California State Prison, Los Angeles County is a male-only state prison located in the city of Lancaster, in Los Angeles County, California. The first and only state prison located in the county, it is also referenced as Los Angeles County State Prison, CSP-Los Angeles County...
.
Today the former Good Guys building still stands, as a Dollar Tree
Dollar Tree
Dollar Tree, Inc. is an American chain of discount variety stores that sells every item for $1.00 or less. A Fortune 500 company, Dollar Tree is headquartered in Chesapeake, Virginia and operates 4,010 stores throughout the 48 contiguous U.S. states. Its stores are supported by a nationwide...
slightly changed with the doors on the side of the building as opposed to the front.
Media representations of the crisis
In 2000, a play titled The Good Guys: An American Tragedy was presented by Theater of Yugen, a theatre group that presents work relating to the Pan Asian Diaspora, at the Theater Artaud in San Francisco, California.The incident is also examined in detail in the first season of the documentary series Shootout!
Shootout!
Shootout! was a documentary series featured on The History Channel and ran for two seasons from 2005 to 2006. It depicts actual firefights between United States military personnel and other combatants. There are also occasional episodes dedicated to police or S.W.A.T. team firefights, as well as...
produced by The History Channel
The History Channel
History, formerly known as The History Channel, is an American-based international satellite and cable TV channel that broadcasts a variety of reality shows and documentary programs including those of fictional and non-fictional historical content, together with speculation about the future.-...
.
External links
- SacBee.com "Hostage suspect tells of sorrow"
- Local ABC news coverage of the event
- TacLink
- Like the Sun - The playwright of The Good Guys: An American Tragedy's website
- Video footage of event