Gunman, hostages dead in vets’ home

A GUNMAN and three hostages were found dead inside the country’s largest veterans home on Friday night after an eight-hour standoff with police.

The gunman, who was known to police but not immediately identified, slipped into a going-away party at the Veterans Home of California in Yountville shortly before 10:30 a.m., Napa County Sheriff John Robertson said.

He held a clinical worker, a psychiatrist and executive director hostage in one room and exchanged several rounds of gunfire with responding officers in a standoff that continued into the night, according to California state Sen. Bill Dodd.

Authorities entered the facility around 6 p.m. local time, and found the suspect, along with three women, dead inside the 600-acre facility.

It remains unclear at what point during they day they died, since police had not spoken to the gunman or the hostages since 10:30 a.m.

The 36-year-old man slipped into the facility's Pathway Home, a privately run program treating veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.

He let several people go, and held the three hostages in one room, authorities said.

A responding sheriff's deputy received an emergency call and exchanged gunfire with the suspect before the facility was placed on lockdown. The officer was not injured.

“This is a tragic piece of news, one that we were really hoping we wouldn’t have to come before the public to give,” said Chris Childs, assistant chief for the California Highway Patrol’s Golden Gate Division.