Nearly eight hours after the standoff began at about 10:30 a.m., authorities said they still didn’t know what was going on inside the room where the gunman and the hostages were. Robert Nacke told reporters Friday evening that the conditions of the hostages were not known and that negotiators had not been able to reach the gunman by phone after trying for several hours. A sheriff’s deputy responding to an emergency call shortly after 10 a.m. got into a shootout with the gunman, but the officer was not injured. The Pathway Home, a privately run program on the grounds of the veterans home, treats veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars with post-traumatic stress disorder. “People are starting to get concerned because it’s been going on for so long,” he told AP by phone from inside the lockdown.

Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer March 10, 2018 03:00 UTC