Former Army infantryman Albert Wong, before he killed three clinicians, one of whom was pregnant, and himself Friday at the Pathway Home's facility in Yountville, California, was not doing as well as his fellow veterans seeking care for issues like post-traumatic stress disorder."Apparently he was given numerous chances," California state Sen. Bill Dodd, D, told The Washington Post on Saturday. Wong, 36, a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, was told to leave the program two weeks ago, Dodd said.Yet Wong returned. He arrived Friday morning armed with at least one rifle during a farewell party at the nonprofit organization, which reintegrates veterans into civilian life. Larry Kamer told the Associated Press that his wife, staffer Devereaux Smith, called and said Wong entered the room quietly and allowed some people to leave, including her.
A Napa Valley Sheriff deputy arrived before 10:30 a.m. local time and exchanged gunfire with Wong. "Many bullets were fired," Sheriff John Robertson said in a briefing Friday, which authorities believed forced Wong into a single room at the Pathway facility with three women: Christine Loeber, 48; Jennifer Golick, 42; and Jennifer Gonzales, 29.
And then nothing. Teams of federal, state and local law enforcement officials and hostage negotiators from three agencies had been unable to make contact with Wong through his cellphone or the captives at the Pathway Home, the red-tiled stucco live-in residency on the sprawling campus of the Veterans Home of California, the largest of its kind in the country.
"There is zero knowledge about what was going on inside," California Highway Patrol spokesman Robert Nacke told The Post. "Everything was isolated to one room."
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