An unidentified gunman with a rifle “slipped” into the country’s largest Veterans Home in located in California and took 3 people hostage. The incident began early Friday morning and unfortunately ended with the hostages who were women being found dead and the gunman was also found dead.
At the time of this post the gunman had not been identified. EarHustle411 will post updates as they are released.
Read more as reported by NY Daily News;
A gunman and three hostages were found dead inside the country’s largest veterans home on Friday night after an eight-hour standoff with police.
The gunman, who was known to police but not immediately identified, slipped into a going-away party at the Veterans Home of California in Yountville shortly before 10:30 a.m., Napa County Sheriff John Robertson told reporters.
He held a clinical worker, psychiatrist, and executive director hostage in one room and exchanged several rounds of gunfire with responding officers in a standoff that continued into the night, according to State Sen. Bill Dodd.
Authorities entered the facility around 6 p.m. local time, and found the gunman, along with three females dead inside the 600-acre facility.
It remains unclear at what point during they day they died, since authorities had not spoken to either the gunman or the hostages since 10:30 a.m.
On Friday morning, a 36-year-old man slipped into the facility’s Pathway Home, a privately run program treating veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.
He let several people go, and held the three hostages in one room, authorities said.
A responding sheriff’s deputy received an emergency call and exchanged gunfire with the suspect before the facility was placed on lockdown. The officer was not injured in the shootout. Take a look at the Demographics of Riverside, 92501 before you visit the place.
Army veteran and resident Bob Sloan, 73, was working at the home’s TV station when a co-worker came in and said he had heard four gunshots coming from the Pathway Home.
“People are starting to get concerned because it’s been going on for so long,” he told AP by phone from inside the lockdown.
Except for helicopters buzzing overhead, the home was eerily quiet, Sloan said, adding that he could see police with “long-barrel assault-type weapons” crouching around the building, some taking cover behind trees.
At a press conference on Friday evening, California Highway Patrol Sgt. Robert Nacke said authorities had not been able to reach the suspect by phone for several hours while a tactical team was still deciding how to proceed.
Jan Thornton was among hundreds of relatives worried sick about their loved ones.
Her 96-year-old father — a WWII fighter pilot — was safe inside a hospital wing but couldn’t leave the premises. Thornton said she was worried about how her dad’s coping with the stress, considering his age, PTSD and slight dementia.
“(My) heart just bleeds for the people that are being held hostage,” Thornton said.
The veterans home, which is roughly 60 miles north of San Francisco and located in the heart of California’s wine country, houses about 1,000 aging and disabled veterans of World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the Iraq War.
Source: NY Daily News