Vets care facility suspends operation
Deadly shooting leaves Pathway Home in limbo
The veterans care center in Yountville where a former Army soldier shot and killed three health care workers has suspended operations indefinitely, administrators said Wednesday.
The nonprofit Pathway Home, which has treated hundreds of veterans of post-9/11 wars for debilitating emotional trauma, was serving a half-dozen men at the time of last week’s shootings. They have been directed to mental and health services from federal and Napa County providers, and Pathway’s seven surviving employees have been given severance packages, said Larry Kamer, a spokesman for the center.
Pathway’s governing board hopes the center can continue, but it’s unclear in what form, Kamer said. The building that houses the treatment center, on the campus of the state-run Veterans Home of California-Yountville, has been closed since the shootings.
“The question is: Can we operate at another facility, or does the organization turn into a support organization?” Kamer said. “What we know is that the need for this kind of program doesn’t
go away. It’s only intensified as people have become aware of the complexities of the issues that veterans face.”
A former patient, Albert Wong, 36, burst into a goingaway party for an employee at the Pathway Home on Friday morning, took two staffers and a federal government psychologist hostage and shot them before turning the gun on himself, according to authorities.
Wong, a decorated Army veteran of the war in Afghanistan, had been treated at the center for post-traumatic stress disorder but had recently been asked to leave. He allowed several staffers to flee after entering the building, but ordered the three eventual victims to stay.
Investigators have not identified a motive for the killings. The victims were Christine Loeber, the Pathway Home’s executive director; Dr. Jennifer Golick, a therapist with the program; and Dr. Jennifer Gonzales, a psychologist with the Department of Veterans Affairs.
The Pathway Home opened in 2008 amid a surge of American soldiers returning from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The home was known for its effective and sometimes unconventional therapy for posttraumatic stress disorder, mild traumatic brain injury and other post-deployment mental health problems.
Although the Pathway building remained surrounded by police tape Wednesday, most of the other facilities on the Veterans Home of California-Yountville were up and running. The campus is one of the nation’s largest veteran communities, with about 850 residents.