What happened to Steven Roloff?
– Echo from Riverside
Steven Ray Roloff, the 19-year-old son of a motorcycle lobbyist, apparently is in prison. He was sentenced April 22, 1992, to 29 years to life in prison for the June 12, 1991, murder of his father, according to reports in The Bee.
He had been convicted of first-degree murder by a Sacramento Superior Court jury.
According to testimony at the trial, young Roloff shot his father, Ronald R. Roloff, in the face during a confrontation at his father's home in North Highlands. Steven, who had been banned from his father's home, and an accomplice, Dana Calvo, had broken into the home.
Superior Court Judge Steven H. Rodda ordered that the teenage killer be housed at the California Youth Authority until his 25th birthday. The young man had expressed a fear of going to state prison because of his father's connections with motorcycle gangs.
Ronald Roloff served as lobbyist for the Modified Motorcycle Association for 19 years.
Calvo pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 16 years to life in prison on May 6, 1992.
What are the details of a shootout Sacramento police had in the early 1970s with a man, whose last name I think was Thompson?
– Anonymous, Sacramento
John M. Thompson was killed in a gunbattle with Sacramento Police Department officers on July 23, 1970, according to reports in The Bee.
Thompson, 70, killed neighbor Ralph Jesse Adams, 37, as he went to Thompson's home on Ford Road in their North Sacramento neighborhood, police and witnesses told The Bee.
Thompson also wounded two police officers responding to the shooting of Adams, investigators said. One of the officers was wounded in the thumb and shoulder. The other officer suffered cuts from flying windshield glass. Both officers recovered and returned to duty.
Officers shot and killed Thompson.
Before the shooting, a witness said youths rode a dune buggy near Thompson as he walked home from a market. As the youths rode the dune buggy near Thompson, he broke the vehicle's windshield with a board, the witness said.
One of the youths allegedly was Adams' son. Adams owned the dune buggy, a witness told The Bee.
Thompson also may have been provoked by earlier harassment by some youths in the neighborhood, his wife told The Bee.
What happened in the murder of Donald Keith Porter, who was killed in '89 or '90?
– Me from Sac
The March 10, 1989, death of Porter, 18, remains unsolved, according to reports in The Bee.
Porter, a passenger in a car being driven south on 29th Street – between Florin Road and 65th Avenue – was fatally wounded when shots from handguns and shotguns were fired from another car.
The suspects were described as five African American men wearing dark clothing who were traveling in what police described as either a beige or yellow 1976 Oldsmobile Cutlass or a 1976 Buick Regal.
Send questions for Sacto 9-1-1 to Bill Enfield or Anthony Sorci at benfield@sacbee.com or (916) 321-1058.
Sacto 9-1-1 handles questions about cases in the region. You can find more Sacto 9-1-1 Q&A's at www.sacbee.com/blogs or www.sacbee.com/ask
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