Gunman sought healing at center

Brother says shooter wasn’t the same after returning from war

When Albert Wong returned from an Army deployment in Afghanistan in 2013, he knew it had affected him. He had trouble adjusting to regular life, couldn’t sleep at night and was hypervigilant about his surroundings.

But when he found a treatment program for veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars who suffer from post-traumatic stress or traumatic brain injuries, he saw it as a way to get help and readjust to civilian life, said Cissy Sherr, who was his legal guardian and raised him for several years as a child. Until he was recently expelled.

On Friday, police said Wong slipped into a going-away party at the program, The Pathway Home, and took three employees hostage. After an hourslong standoff, Wong and the three female workers, one of whom was pregnant, were all found dead.

As a child, Wong had always dreamed of joining the Army, said Sherr, who began caring for him when he was 6 after his father died and his mother developed medical issues.

Sherr and her husband raised Wong for several years.

“He was a pretty happy-go-lucky kid,” Sherr said.

When Wong became a teenager and Sherr and her husband worked full-time, they put him in foster care.

An older adopted brother, Tyrone Lampkin, recalled playing with Wong when they were kids. They also got into fights. Wong’s outbursts at times forced him to live elsewhere for stints, including the time as a teen he pushed another brother down the stairs, breaking his leg, Lampkin told the Santa Rosa Press-democrat in a story published Sunday.

He was a decorated soldier and was awarded the Expert Marksmanship Badge. But that also meant Wong was tasked with dangerous assignments, where he saw “really horrible things” that affected his mental well-being, Sherr said.

Sherr said after Wong was honorably discharged from the Army in 2013, he planned to enroll in school and earn a degree in computer programming and business.

But post-traumatic stress affected his ability to adjust to everyday life, Sherr said.

Lampkin said Wong was never the same after getting out of the military.

Wong told Sherr he had found a program at the veterans home in Yountville, California, and had met people who helped him enroll in a treatment program.

He told Sherr: “I think I’m going to get a lot of help from this program,” she said.

Lampkin said Wong confided to another brother that he was angry at the veterans’ program staff after he’d been dismissed.

“Albert was a good person, he really was a good person,” Lampkin said. “I heard he stopped taking his meds and started drinking a lot … He never told me, he never told me.”