UPDATE 5:00 P.M.: Yuba County Sheriff Steven Durfor says the suspect in the shooting of two deputies was found dead inside a home.
Durfor says it appears the suspect was killed when the deputies returned gunfire but that an autopsy will determine how he died.
He says he does not know the name of the man who barricaded himself inside a rural home.
Durfor says the two deputies shot were airlifted to a hospital and arrived "conscious, talkative and stable."
Authorities say the deputies were responding to reports of an armed and agitated man pulling up plants in the garden of a rural Rastafarian church about 55 miles north of Sacramento.
UPDATE 4:03 P.M.: Sutter Roseville Hospital says two Yuba County sheriff's deputies are in serious condition following surgery after they were shot by a suspect who's still on the loose.
A spokeswoman for the hospital says the deputies were brought there because it's the trauma center closest to the rural community of Oregon House where the shooting took place. Oregon House is just east of Collins Lake, about 55 miles north of Sacramento.
The deputies were responding this morning to reports of an armed and agitated man pulling up marijuana plants in the garden of a Rastafarian church. The deputies were wounded during a shootout with the suspect, who they confronted on a long driveway of the property.
(AP) - Two Northern California deputies were undergoing surgery for wounds sustained in a shootout with a suspect described as a disgruntled member of a church that identifies on social media as a sect of the marijuana-embracing Rastafarian religion.
Yuba County Sheriff's spokeswoman Leslie Carbah says she doesn't know the condition of the two officers shot Friday morning in a rural community about 55 miles north of Sacramento. She says the deputies were responding to call of an armed and agitated church member pulling up plants. Carbah says the suspect engaged the deputies in a gunbattle before fleeing and remains at large.
Karen Hisken, who runs an equestrian facility near the scene, says she can see police action from her yard but that she has not been asked to evacuate the area. Hisken has lived in the area since 1988 and says she is not familiar with any type of Rastafarian church.
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