On April 4, 1991, 41 employees and customers were taken hostage by four gunmen and held at a Good Guys! electronics store at the corner of 65th Street and Stockton Boulevard in Florin, California, near the Florin Mall (now Florin Town Centre) for approximately eight hours. Near the end of the hostage crisis, six were killed: three hostages and three of the four hostage-takers. The fourth hostage-taker was captured by authorities, and an additional 14 hostages were injured during the crisis. To this day, the hostage crisis remains the largest hostage rescue operation in US history, with over 40 hostages having been held at gunpoint.
Event
Background
The four gunmen were all Vietnamese immigrants: brothers Loi Khac Nguyen, 21; Pham Khac Nguyen, 19; and Long Khac Nguyen, 17; and their friend, Cuong Tran, 17. The Nguyens had fled Vietnam as a family of eight in 1979 at the start of the second wave of Vietnamese refugees, first sailing to Malaysia and remaining anchored there for the first seven months, then waiting for four more months in an Indonesian refugee camp before they arrived in California in 1980. The entire family lived in a two-bedroom apartment from the Good Guys! store. Cuong Tran had moved with his parents into a new home in Elk Grove 15 months before the hostage crisis.
Tran and Long Nguyen were friends and classmates at Florin High School; both had been expelled in March 1991 after stealing athletic equipment and attempting to set fire to the building. Loi Nguyen had attended Valley High School but dropped out during his senior year. Pham Nguyen was attending William Daylor High School (a continuation school) after having transferred from Valley following attendance issues.
On the day of the hostage crisis, Pham Nguyen briefly came to school and asked to be excused with a toothache. The Nguyen brothers told their parents they were going fishing at the Sacramento River.
Start of the siege
At approximately 1:00 p.m., on April 4, 1991, the four young gunmen drove into the parking lot of the Good Guys! electronics store, in the South Area of Sacramento County. The group left their vehicle, a 1982 Toyota Corolla, and entered the store armed with three pistols and a shotgun. They had purchased the guns legally at a local sporting goods store the prior week, following a background check and waiting period. Although reported, the gunmen were not members of the Oriental Boys gang, and the hostage-taking and subsequent crisis were not considered to be gang-related.
They herded customers and staff into a group, including a shoplifter attempting to leave the store, and began shooting at the ceiling of the store. One employee escaped after being ordered to lock the doors. Although initial reports indicated they had taken the hostages after a failed robbery attempt, subsequent statements to hostages and negotiators instead proved "they were attempting to gain notoriety," according to Sacramento County Sheriff Glen Craig. They were frustrated with their lives in the United States since it was difficult to find good jobs and expressed a desire to travel to Thailand and fight the Viet Cong, according to two of the hostages.
Law enforcement and media response
When the 9-1-1 call came in at 1:33 p.m., 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
Following the 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 that was not alarmed: a freight entrance located at the rear of the store. Their only option would be to enter the store's showroom, where the hostages were being held, 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.