Sacramento’s Good Guys hostage crisis happened 35 years ago. Here are 5 key takeaways
Eventually, April 4 became something close to just an annual day for Roseville resident Gaye Lauritzen.
“It’s just kind of like, ‘Oh, it’s the Good Guys day today,” she said.
On April 4, 1991, Lauritzen’s late husband Chris Lauritzen was one of 41 people taken hostage at a Good Guys electronics store in south Sacramento by four Vietnamese refugees. The crisis ended hours later with three hostages and three hostage takers dead and an additional 14 people wounded.
The Sacramento Bee published a comprehensive retrospective Friday, which included interviews with a number of people who were involved in the incident.
Here are five key takeaways:
1. How the hostage crisis began
Al Bodnar, a Good Guys salesman saw the hostage takers outside the store shortly before the incident began. It was around 1:30 in the afternoon. The men were brothers Loi Khac Nguyen, Long Khac Nguyen and Pham Khac Nguyen and a fourth man, Cuong Tran. They were armed.
“They just started shooting up the place and yelling in Vietnamese,” Bodnar said.
2. What were the hostage takers’ motivations?
As the store was at 7020 Stockton Blvd. and technically in an unincorporated part of Sacramento County otherwise contiguous with the city of Sacramento, the sheriff’s department primarily handled the response.
At first, Sacramento County Sheriff’s dispatcher Leslie Beach thought the call was a code 211 robbery-in-progress. Law enforcement who responded to the scene of the crisis like Jeff Boyes, a SWAT team member and sniper, operated with a similar initial understanding.
Law enforcement learned the gunmen wanted safe passage to Southeast Asia where they would serve as freedom fighters.
“As they made contact with the people inside, we discovered it was less of a robbery and more of some sort of a harebrained political stunt,” Boyes said.
3. How the crisis ended
Boyes, one of two snipers at the scene, was given the greenlight to shoot should he have a clear chance after the hostage takers began non-lethally shooting hostages.
He hesitated to shoot for some time. He attempted to shoot Long Khac Nguyen. His shot missed, deflecting glass onto Long Khac Nguyen’s face and setting him off on an immediate rampage, shooting several hostages, three fatally.
The SWAT team stormed the store, killing three of the four hostage takers, including Long Khac Nguyen. His older brother who was wounded but survived — Loi Khac Nguyen, is serving 49 consecutive life terms in a California state prison.
Boyes isn’t sure if the outcome would have been different if he had fatally shot Long Khac Nguyen.
“Let’s say that seeing their partner get blown up causes the other three people to be outraged and they all start shooting people on the ground,” Boyes said. “So now, instead of one person shooting on the ground you have three. Maybe the outcome would be worse. It’s not something you can really predict.”
4. Who died
Good Guys employees John Fritz Jr. and Kris Sohne and customer Fernando Gutierrez were killed.
Father Dan Looney, who spoke at Gutierrez’s memorial, said that Gutierrez died shielding one of his nieces. Two of Gutierrez’s nieces were held hostage alongside him.
Fritz had married Gail Fritz in 1986 She said she had fond memories of her late husband.
“He was a terrific husband,” said Gail Fritz, who is now 79 and lives near Shasta. “He was a really good cook. He was a great shopper. He could go out and buy me a complete outfit.”
Sohne’s widow couldn’t be reached for comment.
5. What the site is today
An image from Google Maps shows that 7020 Stockton Blvd. has become a Dollar Tree store. Past reporting has noted that the entrance of the building was changed to a different side.
That said, the Google Maps image clearly shows remnants of the former entrance.
This story was originally published April 4, 2026 at 5:00 AM.
