Records disclose gunman’s threats
Veterans home killings followed vow of violence
A former Army infantryman who shot and killed three staff members last year at a veterans center in Yountville before killing himself was upset about his treatment and talked about shooting employees “several times” before the killings, according to records released Friday.
Napa County Sheriff ’s Office records show that 36-year-old Albert Wong was “very angry” at the Pathway Home’s counselors.
Two weeks before the shooting, Wong was removed from the Pathway Home program, where he resided, for threatening counselors, according to interviews with an employee and a resident who knew him.
Another Pathway resident told investigators Wong felt misunderstood by his counselors, but the man, who described himself as a friend, believed his threats were just venting about the program, authorities said.
The records, which were released under SB1421, a new police transparency law, redact
the names of Wong and responding deputies and other interview subjects.
“(Redacted) said he should have seen ‘the signs’ that (redacted) was going to kill someone but thought it was just ‘guy talk’ and (redacted) didn’t really mean it,” the records state.
Wong entered the Pathway Home at the Veterans Home of California in March 2018 with a shotgun, semiautomatic rifle and ammunition. He burst into a going-away party for an employee and ordered veterans and most staffers to leave the room.
Investigators later found a rifle bag next to the door of a boiler room Wong is believed to have used to enter the building.
The veterans home had at least one security officer, according to sheriff ’s records. A spokesman for Pathway Home said the guards are unarmed and roam the facility, and there were surveillance cameras at the front door and in the hallways.
Wong took psychologist Jennifer Gonzales Shushereba, then seven months pregnant, hostage along with Clinical Director Jennifer Golick and Executive Director Christine Loeber. After exchanging gunfire with a Napa County sheriff ’s deputy, Wong fatally shot all three women before killing himself, officials said.
The sheriff ’s records released Friday show that Wong felt only one Pathway Home staff member was trying to help him as he grappled with post-traumatic stress disorder, and met with that person up to four times a week, the fellow Pathway resident said.
That staff member, whose name was redacted in the report, assigned him to a new clinician after becoming more involved in the center’s administration. Wong soon developed depression and felt his new clinician didn’t understand him, officials said.
The other resident told of an incident during which the shooter “just wanted to feel like someone cared,” according to the documents. That led Wong to request an unnamed female staffer, whose name is redacted in the report, to handwrite “I Care” on a note.
The person refused to write the note and instead typed a different response, which was redacted from the documents.
“(Redacted) became upset and threatened to kill (redacted) and (redacted), which was why he was eventually removed from the program,” the records state.
When the friend ate dinner with the shooter the night before the massacre, he told Wong not much had changed, enraging him. However, Wong didn’t indicate that he planned on visiting Yountville or committing the killings.
Wong was in active service in the Army from May 2010 to August 2013, and spent almost a year on a tour of duty in Afghanistan, according to military records. He was issued a security guard license and open carry permit in 2008, but both were canceled in October 2017.
The Pathway Home closed after the shootings, and the program was shut down.
Earlier this year, attorneys for the Shushereba and Loeber families filed wrongful death lawsuits against the state, which manages the veterans center where Pathway Home was located. Both declined to comment on Tuesday. An attorney representing the Golick family did not respond to a request for comment.
A lawyer and a former spokesman for Pathway Home also declined to comment on the records or pending litigation.