___

 

 5:45 p.m.

 

 Officers at the scene of a California veterans home where a man is holding three people hostage say they have had no contact with the gunman since shots were fired around 10:20 a.m.

 

 California Highway Patrol spokesman Sgt. Three women and a gunman who held them hostage at a California home for U.S. war veterans were found dead inside the room where he was holed up on Friday, bringing a tragic end to an all-day standoff with police at the facility, authorities said. A state senator whose district includes the area, Bill Dodd, earlier told reporters that the gunman was a member of Pathway Home, a program for veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, and that the hostages were believed to be employees of the facility. Earlier in the day, Childs said the women were employees of the Pathway Home — employees, he said, whose job it was to “help our veterans.” The Pathway Home, according to its website, provides post-Sept. 11 veterans with academic and vocational support as they prepare to ease back into the civilian world. Law enforcement authorities from multiple agencies responded to a report in the morning of shots being fired at the Yountville Veterans Home in Napa County, working to clear buildings and establish a perimeter. ___

 

 2:20 p.m.

 

 California authorities say officers exchanged gunfire with a gunman holding three veterans program employees hostage at the largest veterans home in the U.S.

 

 Napa County Sheriff John Robertson told reporters Friday that "many bullets" were fired but that the deputies weren't injured. The Associated Press, citing Defense Department records, said Mr. Wong was an Army veteran who had served in Afghanistan, and the Napa County statement said he had been associated with the Yountville facility’s Pathway Home treatment program. Male veterans enrolled in the live-in program are mostly soldiers returning from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars who have difficulty transitioning into civilian life.
An Afghan War veteran and recently expelled resident takes an executive director and two psychologists into a room at the Veterans Home of California in Yountville, California. Seven hours later, California Highway Patrol officers find all of them shot dead.