SACRAMENTO — Four members of an Asian-American gang, seeking notoriety by holding 40 people hostage in an electronics store, flipped coins to decide which of their victims to kill moments before Sacramento County sheriff's deputies rushed in, authorities said Friday.
The rescue attempt by the sheriff's SWAT team faltered when a sniper missed one of the gunmen, prompting the gang members to begin shooting hostages at random during the Thursday night siege.
By the time deputies charged from the back of the building and gunned down the gang members, three hostages were dead and 11 were wounded. Another hostage who was two months pregnant suffered a miscarriage during the ordeal. Three of the four unidentified gunmen--believed to be in their late teens--died in the hail of bullets.
Several wounded hostages Friday criticized the Sheriff's Department's negotiators for antagonizing the gunmen during the eight hours leading up to the shoot-out.
Some law enforcement officials outside the department privately questioned the SWAT team's tactics and delay in shooting the gunmen after the sniper missed his target.
Sacramento County Sheriff Glen Craig defended his department, saying that the gang members had come to the Good Guys store prepared to die and were on the verge of killing their hostages when the first deputy opened fire.
Already, he said, the gunmen had shot two hostages in the leg, including a diabetic man who had collapsed because of his illness.
"I don't know what we could have done differently," Craig told a packed press conference. "We are satisfied they would have begun shooting people within seconds of the time we took the action to move in and save the hostages."
Providing the first detailed account of the incident, Craig said the four gang members did not enter the store to commit a robbery but were seeking to bring attention to themselves and their gang, "Oriental Boys."
During the siege, the four Vietnamese-Chinese gunmen kept changing their demands, at one point asking sheriff's deputies to fetch 1,000-year-old ginger roots and make them tea. At other times, they demanded $4 million in cash, a helicopter that could hold 40 people, a .45-caliber pistol and transportation to Thailand so they could fight the "Viet Cong." They also wanted a document signed by President Bush and Gov. Pete Wilson granting them amnesty.
