Negotiator Change May Have Escalated Standoff in Store : Tactics: Two of the wounded hostages blame a breakdown in bargaining for the deadly confrontation.

The tense standoff Thursday between Sacramento sheriff’s deputies and four gunmen holding hostages in an electronics store escalated into what became a deadly confrontation after authorities made a key decision to change negotiators, according to police and hostage descriptions of the incident that left six dead.

Two of the hostages wounded in the ordeal blamed the police negotiator for helping to escalate what had been a firm stand by the armed gunman into a shootout at a Good Guys store located near a crowded shopping mall.

“It just got to a certain point where, when they realized the negotiator for the police was not doing bargaining in good faith, that they were going to have to convince him that they were serious and they were going to have to start killing people,” said Alan Story, 37, who was shot in the chest.

Three hostages and three of the gunmen were killed in bloody finale of the long standoff.

At a packed news conference, Sacramento County Sheriff Glen Craig defended his department’s handling of the negotiations, which took place over a store telephone, by saying the gunmen were the ones who broke faith by reneging on their promise to trade hostages for bullet-proof vests.

But Craig acknowledged that the gunmen resisted his decision to switch negotiators at 4:27 p.m., nearly three hours after the armed men took over the store and 40 bystanders. Craig ordered a trained expert at the scene to take over the telephone negotiations from Sgt. Jerry Gomez, who was stationed 10 miles away and took the call from the gunmen about 1:30 p.m.

“It was one of those things where the gunmen inside were not willing to give up the discussion they were having with Sgt. Gomez,” Craig said. “They somewhat trusted him. They didn’t want to talk to anybody else.”

There was no immediate outburst by the gunmen after the switch, but some hostages said that less than two hours after the change, the gunmen clearly became more agitated.

A spokesman for the Sacramento office of the FBI said Thursday that the agency called the Sheriff’s Department to offer technical and negotiation expertise. “They have their own people, they apparently didn’t think they needed help, they didn’t call back,” said agent Tom Griffin.

Griffin said the sheriff’s SWAT team did a superb job, and even the hostages critical of the negotiations said the decision to storm the electronics store was correct. Police SWAT team members killed three gunmen and seriously wounded another after the gunmen systematically killed three hostages and wounded another 11.

“Had they waited another five minutes, probably more people would have been dead,” said Story.

In hospital interviews from their wheelchairs, Story and David Seigler, 27, said the gunmen became irritated with the sheriff’s negotiator shortly before 6 p.m. Before that, the armed invaders were “hospitable” and even gave the hostages soda and snacks, they said.

Sgt. Gomez had been able to persuade the gunmen to release a woman and two children in exchange for a vest, which was delivered to the front door by an officer who stripped to his underwear to show he was unarmed.

After the switch, the second negotiator--a member of the department’s Critical Incident Negotiating Team--coaxed the armed men to release three other children and two women “without really giving up anything,” Craig said.

“They were successful in getting them to turn those people loose, but they could not keep them focused on anything in the negotiation,” he said. “It was apparent that . . . it was beginning to deteriorate.”

Inside the store, the gunmen’s mood changed, said Seigler.

“They were very reasonable but about 6 o’clock, as deadline after deadline passed, they got, you know, the tension rose, and they got more and more panicked,” he said. “In fact, if anything, what they (police) did on the other side of the phone, the negotiations, seemed to make things more tense.”

The tension built as, at 7:40 p.m., the gunmen decided to begin tying up the hostages with speaker wire in what some hostages said were apparent preparations for mass execution. The gunmen released another hostage, shot two in the leg as warnings and then began flipping coins to see who would be the first of their hostages to die, said the men.

Times staff writer William Trombley contributed to this story.