Residents at the Veterans Home in Yountville were ordered to shelter in place shortly before 2 p.m.
A heavily armed gunman stormed into the country’s largest veterans home and opened fire before taking at least three people hostage Friday morning, authorities said.
The gunman, who is known to police but was not immediately identified, barged into the Veterans Home of California in Yountville shortly before 10:30 a.m., Napa County Sheriff John Robertson told reporters.
There were no immediate reports of injuries, but Robertson said the shooter is armed with a rifle and exchanged “many bullets” with responding officers. The suspect was still holding hostages and engaging in a standoff with police around 3 p.m. local time.
“We have not made contact with the gunman yet,” Robertson said, adding that cops are “approaching this as an active shooter situation.”
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The hostages are employees of the facility’s Pathway Home, a privately run program treating veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, cops said.
The campus remained on lockdown Friday afternoon, but police said the security threat was limited to the Pathway Home.
Local outlets, citing police radio chatter, reported that the gunman is armed with an automatic weapon.
It was not immediately clear if there were any casualties. 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.
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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.
With News Wire Services
