Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Gunman in deaths of captives, himself a troubled ex-GI
The man who authorities say killed three women after a daylong siege at a Northern California veterans home had trouble adjusting to regular life after he returned from the Afghanistan war and had been kicked out of the treatment program designed to help him.
“Apparently he was given numerous chances,” California state Sen. Bill Dodd told The Washington Post on Saturday. Albert Wong, 36, was told to leave the program two weeks ago, Dodd said.
Authorities said Wong arrived at the veterans facility in Yountville on Friday morning with a rifle and exchanged gunfire with a sheriff’s deputy before crashing a farewell party for employees and taking captives.
A standoff between Wong and the police came to a grim end when officers entered the room he was in to find him and three women dead.
Christine Loeber, 48; Jennifer Golick, 42; and Jennifer Gonzales, 29, were killed. Loeber was the executive director of The Pathway Home, a nonprofit that reintegrates veterans with civilian life. Golick was a clinical director, and Gonzales was a clinical psychologist with the San Francisco Department of Veterans Affairs Healthcare System.
The confrontation stretched throughout the day Friday and into the evening. Teams of federal, state and local law enforcement officials and hostage negotiators from three agencies had been unable to make contact with the gunman or the hostages throughout the day, officials said.
About 6 p.m., officers entered the room and discovered the bodies of the three women and Wong, dead of apparent gunshot wounds.
“We are deeply saddened by the tragic situation in Yountville and mourn the loss of three incredible women who cared for our Veterans,” President Donald Trump said in a Saturday post on Twitter.
VA Secretary David Shulkin also added condolences late Friday night. “We are deeply saddened and affected by the tragic outcome of the hostage situation at the Veterans Home of California in Yountville and extend our deepest condolences to the loved ones involved,” Shulkin said.
California Gov. Jerry Brown ordered flags flown at half-staff at the Capitol in memory of the victims.
Wong served in the Army as an infantryman with one tour in Afghanistan from 201112, The Associated Press reported.
“These brave women were accomplished professionals who dedicated their careers to serving our nation’s veterans, working closely with those in the greatest need of attention after deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan,” the Pathway Home said in a statement.
The incident began to unfold about 10:20 a.m., when Wong exchanged gunfire with a sheriff’s deputy who had been called to the scene, officials said.
The standoff lasted about eight hours, paralyzing the complex and nearby areas. Law enforcement officers from state and federal agencies had surrounded the building as worried family members waited outside. Those inside were told to shelter in place.
Law enforcement agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the FBI assisted in the response, joining deputies from the Napa County sheriff’s office as well as a SWAT team from the highway patrol.
Wong was “calm and soft-spoken” but had a hard time readjusting after he returned from Afghanistan in 2013 and couldn’t sleep at night, Cissy Sherr, who was Wong’s legal guardian when he was a child, told the San Francisco Chronicle.
Sherr and her husband became Wong’s guardians after his father died and his mother developed health problems, she said. He moved back in with them for about a month when he returned from his deployment and kept in touch online.
“We were so proud of the young man he had grown up to be through the years. His life was not the average life with a stable situation, what with having his dad die when he was so young and his mom not being around to raise him,” Sherr told the newspaper.
Wong wanted to go back to school to study computers and business, and thought the Pathway House program would help him, she said.
The Yountville residence, home to 1,000 elderly or disabled veterans of wars dating back to World War II, dates to the 1880s, according to the California state VA. It is the largest veterans home in the United States.
The Pathway Home occupies part of the campus. The organization opened in 2008 to work with male soldiers returning home from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, including a large number dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
Since it opened, about 450 people have been treated there for issues such as post-traumatic stress disorder, mild traumatic brain injury and other mental health issues, the Chronicle reported.