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While his young family slept, 35-year-old Kenneth Bernard Royal got a call on his radio that a fellow officer needed some assistance.
It was June 7, 1968, and the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department deputy had been on the job for just three years after leaving his plastering career to chase a dream and provide more security for his wife and four young children.
Royal's fellow officer had just pulled over two men suspected of robbing a south Sacramento tavern and Royal rushed to help.
“The driver of the suspect's vehicle pulled into a darkened side street, stopped abruptly and immediately jumped from the vehicle and fled into the darkness of a nearby field, thereby leaving the passenger alone in the car,” read the report from that incident.
“After the lone suspect refused to comply with the officers' repeated demands to exit the vehicle, Officer Royal approached the car while Officer O'Neal provided backup with a shotgun and shined a spotlight on the vehicle.”
Suddenly all hell broke loose, as the suspect fired at deputy Royal, hitting him in the neck with a .38-caliber slug. The suspect then turned his attention on O'Neal, who eventually wounded the suspect with at least one blast from his shotgun.
Royal, meanwhile, was suffocating on his own blood. The bullet that entered his neck had severed an artery and he would die on the scene, becoming the fifth of 12 Sacramento County Sheriff's Department deputies to be killed in the line of duty.
Turn the clock ahead 41 years and Nevada County Sheriff Keith Royal is sitting behind his desk inside the county Rood Center remembering his father who died too soon and how his death encouraged a new generation of cops.
“I remember coming home from school the next day and my mom telling us that dad was killed,” said Keith Royal. “Me and my identical twin brother Kenneth were 15 at the time.”
The family was shielded from the media frenzy that would occur as the suspects made their way through the judicial system. The first suspect who fled was captured and would spend a few years in prison for his role in the robbery that netted them just $38.
The man who killed Kenneth Royal was convicted (after recovering from his own gunshot wounds) and sentenced to death. That sentence was commuted to life in prison when the death penalty was abolished.
“After serving a few years in prison, the felon escaped during a visitation with family and went on a kidnapping spree,” reads a summary on a website dedicated to fallen officers. “He was later apprehended after being shot several times (once in the eye) during an altercation with another officer in another county.”
The cop-killer would eventually die of natural causes behind the walls of San Quentin 21 years after the fatal shooting.
“My brother and I were sophomores at Highlands High,” recalled Sheriff Keith Royal. The family also included Keith's younger brother Patrick and sister Melody.
The Royals were a close, church-going family. Despite his father's late-night and weekend schedule, Keith Royal said his father still found time to spend with his family.
“He was a great dad,” he said. “He was a hard worker who raised us the right way.”
After graduation from high school, Keith Royal entered Sacramento State University determined to be a lawyer while twin brother Kenneth pursued a path to become a minister.
“I started to wonder if I shouldn't get into law enforcement,” Keith recalled. “My family didn't want any of us to be cops, but there was something about law enforcement that I really liked.”
He would graduate from college and earn a degree in criminal justice, landing a job as an investigator with the Department of Motor Vehicles in Southern California. He'd been encouraged to test with the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department, but tossed the business card away.
“Janette (Keith's wife) would find the card and the next thing I knew I had been accepted to the academy,” remembered Keith.
He graduated from the sheriff's department academy at the top of his class on Jan. 6, 1975, just seven-and-a-half years after his father's death. “Even though I had a lot of support from my dad's former colleagues I was determined to work hard,” he said. “I didn't want anyone to think I was getting special treatment.”
Keith's twin brother, meanwhile, would also have a change of heart, eventually leaving the ministry to join his brother at the Sacramento Sheriff's Department. “He (Kenneth) applied and was accepted to the academy and would spend 17 years there, earning the rank of lieutenant,” said Keith. “He lives in Idaho today and is still involved with church ministry.”
Younger brother Patrick would also join the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department, where he has worked patrol for the past 20-plus years, according to Keith. And Kenneth's son Stephen (Keith's nephew) has added to the long list of Royals in the sheriff department yearbook, serving as a patrol officer today.
Keith Royal has had his own brushes with death during the line of duty. On one occasion they had a murder suspect surrounded and he (the suspect) decided to try to run through a roadblock and right at Royal. “I fired three shots, but none of them did much good,” he recalled. “The suspect caved in the side of my car.”
He was also in a head-on collision with a drunken driver in 1983 that almost cost Keith Royal his leg. “The impact was estimated at 110 miles per hour,” he recalled. “I suffered multiple compound fractures that still bother me today.”
He said his wife Janette drove past the accident scene on her way to the hospital and thought that no one could have survived.
Keith Royal would eventually move his family to southern Nevada County, where Janette and their two daughters (Janelle and Jeanna) could enjoy their horses and attend better schools. He ran unsuccessfully for sheriff of Nevada County in 1994 before winning the seat four years later. He was elected to a third term last November after running unopposed. “I don't see myself retiring anytime soon,” he said.
His father's death in 1968 resulted in new officer safety measures. “POST (Police Officer Standards and Training) started looking into incidents like that one and making significant changes to how officers approach vehicles,” Keith Royal said. “They really didn't have a lot of training back then.”
There is a park near the scene of the 1968 fatal shooting and a state-of-the-art firing range named in Deputy Kenneth Bernard Royal's honor. His name also appears on the National Law Enforcement Memorial (Panel 17, E-4) in Washington, D.C.
“The guys who worked nights with my father (called the 4th Platoon) presented me with my father's old gun,” said Keith. “Those guys always watched my back. It was a neat relationship.”
Keith's mother Virginia still lives in the Sacramento area.
Jeff Ackerman is the editor/publisher of The Union. Contact him at 477-4299, jackerman@theunion.com, or 464 Sutton Way, Grass Valley 95945.
It was June 7, 1968, and the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department deputy had been on the job for just three years after leaving his plastering career to chase a dream and provide more security for his wife and four young children.
Royal's fellow officer had just pulled over two men suspected of robbing a south Sacramento tavern and Royal rushed to help.
“The driver of the suspect's vehicle pulled into a darkened side street, stopped abruptly and immediately jumped from the vehicle and fled into the darkness of a nearby field, thereby leaving the passenger alone in the car,” read the report from that incident.
“After the lone suspect refused to comply with the officers' repeated demands to exit the vehicle, Officer Royal approached the car while Officer O'Neal provided backup with a shotgun and shined a spotlight on the vehicle.”
Suddenly all hell broke loose, as the suspect fired at deputy Royal, hitting him in the neck with a .38-caliber slug. The suspect then turned his attention on O'Neal, who eventually wounded the suspect with at least one blast from his shotgun.
Royal, meanwhile, was suffocating on his own blood. The bullet that entered his neck had severed an artery and he would die on the scene, becoming the fifth of 12 Sacramento County Sheriff's Department deputies to be killed in the line of duty.
Turn the clock ahead 41 years and Nevada County Sheriff Keith Royal is sitting behind his desk inside the county Rood Center remembering his father who died too soon and how his death encouraged a new generation of cops.
“I remember coming home from school the next day and my mom telling us that dad was killed,” said Keith Royal. “Me and my identical twin brother Kenneth were 15 at the time.”
The family was shielded from the media frenzy that would occur as the suspects made their way through the judicial system. The first suspect who fled was captured and would spend a few years in prison for his role in the robbery that netted them just $38.
The man who killed Kenneth Royal was convicted (after recovering from his own gunshot wounds) and sentenced to death. That sentence was commuted to life in prison when the death penalty was abolished.
“After serving a few years in prison, the felon escaped during a visitation with family and went on a kidnapping spree,” reads a summary on a website dedicated to fallen officers. “He was later apprehended after being shot several times (once in the eye) during an altercation with another officer in another county.”
The cop-killer would eventually die of natural causes behind the walls of San Quentin 21 years after the fatal shooting.
“My brother and I were sophomores at Highlands High,” recalled Sheriff Keith Royal. The family also included Keith's younger brother Patrick and sister Melody.
The Royals were a close, church-going family. Despite his father's late-night and weekend schedule, Keith Royal said his father still found time to spend with his family.
“He was a great dad,” he said. “He was a hard worker who raised us the right way.”
After graduation from high school, Keith Royal entered Sacramento State University determined to be a lawyer while twin brother Kenneth pursued a path to become a minister.
“I started to wonder if I shouldn't get into law enforcement,” Keith recalled. “My family didn't want any of us to be cops, but there was something about law enforcement that I really liked.”
He would graduate from college and earn a degree in criminal justice, landing a job as an investigator with the Department of Motor Vehicles in Southern California. He'd been encouraged to test with the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department, but tossed the business card away.
“Janette (Keith's wife) would find the card and the next thing I knew I had been accepted to the academy,” remembered Keith.
He graduated from the sheriff's department academy at the top of his class on Jan. 6, 1975, just seven-and-a-half years after his father's death. “Even though I had a lot of support from my dad's former colleagues I was determined to work hard,” he said. “I didn't want anyone to think I was getting special treatment.”
Keith's twin brother, meanwhile, would also have a change of heart, eventually leaving the ministry to join his brother at the Sacramento Sheriff's Department. “He (Kenneth) applied and was accepted to the academy and would spend 17 years there, earning the rank of lieutenant,” said Keith. “He lives in Idaho today and is still involved with church ministry.”
Younger brother Patrick would also join the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department, where he has worked patrol for the past 20-plus years, according to Keith. And Kenneth's son Stephen (Keith's nephew) has added to the long list of Royals in the sheriff department yearbook, serving as a patrol officer today.
Keith Royal has had his own brushes with death during the line of duty. On one occasion they had a murder suspect surrounded and he (the suspect) decided to try to run through a roadblock and right at Royal. “I fired three shots, but none of them did much good,” he recalled. “The suspect caved in the side of my car.”
He was also in a head-on collision with a drunken driver in 1983 that almost cost Keith Royal his leg. “The impact was estimated at 110 miles per hour,” he recalled. “I suffered multiple compound fractures that still bother me today.”
He said his wife Janette drove past the accident scene on her way to the hospital and thought that no one could have survived.
Keith Royal would eventually move his family to southern Nevada County, where Janette and their two daughters (Janelle and Jeanna) could enjoy their horses and attend better schools. He ran unsuccessfully for sheriff of Nevada County in 1994 before winning the seat four years later. He was elected to a third term last November after running unopposed. “I don't see myself retiring anytime soon,” he said.
His father's death in 1968 resulted in new officer safety measures. “POST (Police Officer Standards and Training) started looking into incidents like that one and making significant changes to how officers approach vehicles,” Keith Royal said. “They really didn't have a lot of training back then.”
There is a park near the scene of the 1968 fatal shooting and a state-of-the-art firing range named in Deputy Kenneth Bernard Royal's honor. His name also appears on the National Law Enforcement Memorial (Panel 17, E-4) in Washington, D.C.
“The guys who worked nights with my father (called the 4th Platoon) presented me with my father's old gun,” said Keith. “Those guys always watched my back. It was a neat relationship.”
Keith's mother Virginia still lives in the Sacramento area.
Jeff Ackerman is the editor/publisher of The Union. Contact him at 477-4299, jackerman@theunion.com, or 464 Sutton Way, Grass Valley 95945.
