Three mental health clinicians who helped care for U.S. combat veterans were killed by one of them Friday after a man treated in their program stormed a building at the Veterans Home of California in Yountville carrying a high-powered rifle, taking people hostage and exchanging gunfire with a Napa County sheriff’s deputy.

The attack, reported just after 10 a.m., touched off a daylong lockdown at the nation’s largest veteran’s home on a sprawling 600-acre state campus. The victims died in a building where they worked with the Pathway Home, a private organization that helps veterans transition to civilian life.

Dozens of heavily armed law enforcement officers from across the region as well as the FBI swarmed the campus by mid-morning, bracing for a siege or prolonged hostage negotiations, but that did not take place. Officers saw and heard nothing from the gunman or the three hostages over the course of about eight hours until their bodies were discovered about 6 p.m., a CHP spokesman said.

“I feel sick to my stomach. I feel sick to my heart,” said Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, who knew one of the three women killed Friday. “These were wonderful people who were killed. It’s just, it’s just really hard to think about it, talk about it. It’s another senseless killing.”

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