Killing of Abductor Is Ruled Justified

Kern County sheriff’s deputies acted within department policy and state law when they shot a career criminal in a dry riverbed 12 hours after he kidnapped two teenage girls at gunpoint from a Quartz Hill overlook, a sheriff’s review board found Tuesday.

After more than a dozen interviews with law enforcement officials and the victims, the panel concluded that Roy D. Ratliff, 37, touched off the Aug. 1 gunfight by pointing a .38-caliber handgun at a deputy and firing out the driver’s side window of a stolen Ford Bronco.

Deputies James Stratton and Larry Thatcher fired 17 shots at Ratliff, who died of a gunshot wound to the left cheek, the Kern County coroner found.

“It was the suspect’s actions that caused the deputies to use deadly force,” Kern County Sheriff’s Det. Cmdr. Marty Williamson said. “The suspect had the opportunity to surrender and he failed to do so by arming himself and firing a weapon at the deputies.”

Tamara Brooks, 16, and Jackie Marris, 17, told investigators that Ratliff, who was facing a potential third-strike offense, also made comments before and during the shootout that he would not go peacefully, Williamson said.

After the rescue, The Times followed its practice of not naming the victims of sexual assault without their permission. The practice, established to protect victims’ privacy, was waived after the girls agreed to tell their story on television.

Williamson said Wednesday that the deputies asked Ratliff “on numerous occasions” to put down his weapon and get out of the vehicle. “They told him to stop, show his hands and gave him numerous opportunities to surrender. He threatened to kill the girls and the deputies.”

The shootout on a desolate stretch of road off California 178 ended a harrowing ordeal that began with the predawn kidnapping Aug. 1 of the teenagers from separate vehicles parked at a local overlook known as Quartz Hill Mountain.

The review board heard evidence that after the shots fired by deputies, Ratliff fell back into the vehicle before again raising his handgun at Deputy Thatcher, causing Thatcher and Stratton to fire a second volley that included the fatal shot, Williamson said.

About the same time, the girls started to scream.

One escaped through the rear car window and the second got out after climbing over Ratliff, slumped in the front seat, Williamson said.

The board determined that the evidence supported the deputies’ contention that they were unaware the girls were in the vehicle when the shooting began.