Police respond to reports of gun at California veterans home
YOUNTVILLE, Calif. (AP) — Police in Northern California’s Napa County responded to a report of a woman with a shotgun at a veterans home Tuesday but said an extensive search found no sign of anyone armed and the facility was resuming normal operations.
The California Highway Patrol said it would keep several patrol units at the Veterans Home of California-Yountville protectively after a massive search by air and ground of the sprawling facility.
The CHP also said there were no reports of any shots fired in what appeared to have been a false alarm at the home, which was the site of a deadly shooting three years ago.
Police sent out an alert at 8:20 a.m. warning people to avoid the area around the Veterans Home of California-Yountville.
In a statement Tuesday afternoon, the CHP said it had received a report in the morning of what appeared to be a woman at the facility with what the caller described as a shotgun.
“A thorough search of the grounds and the buildings by multiple agencies resulted in no weapon or individuals matching the description found,” CHP said. “There are no additional reports or witnesses.”
The facility is the largest veterans home in the U.S. and houses about 1,000 older or disabled veterans from World War II to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, according to the California Department of Veterans Affairs.
In 2018, a veteran killed three staff members, all of whom were mental health workers, at a treatment facility on the grounds of the veterans home.
Albert Wong, 36, shot the women in the head with a rifle, then used a shotgun to kill himself. Prosecutors at the time said Wong was upset that he had been kicked out of a residential treatment program for post-traumatic stress syndrome on the grounds of the veterans home.