YUBA COUNTY, Calif. -- Two California sheriff's deputies were shot and wounded Tuesday after they responded to reports of an armed and agitated man pulling up plants in the garden of a self-proclaimed Rastafarian church, authorities said.
The shooter was found dead inside a home, and the Yuba County deputies were in serious condition and undergoing surgery at Sutter Roseville Medical Center after the shooting in the rural community of Oregon House about 55 miles north of Sacramento.
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Karen Hisken, who runs an equestrian facility near the scene, said she could see police action from her yard but had not been asked to evacuate. Hisken has lived in the area since 1988 and said she is not familiar with any type of Rastafarian church.
"I don't know what they're talking about, that is so weird to me," she said.
Yuba County Sheriff's spokeswoman Leslie Carbagh declined to release the names of the two deputies. The shooter's name is unknown, Carbagh said.
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The 911 caller didn't identify the type of plants the shooter was said to be pulling up or the name of the church, Carbagh said.
The shooting occurred a day after two police officers were shot and wounded nearly 200 miles south in the central California city of Los Banos during a struggle with a man who broke into his estranged wife's apartment. Police fatally shot that shooter.