By Max Fontaine | Starving for hard news

Arrests were made late Tuesday after an altercation and shooting at Airport Inn (On Airport Road) on Airport Road near the airport out on Out-on-the-Highway Road near Bass Lake.

According to Bass Lake Authority Police, witnesses and social-media rumors, a misunderstanding among three patrons of the restaurant led to another misunderstanding, leading to a gun-related solution.

Police said a 41-year-old regional resident fired shots at two other patrons, wounding one and wounding another.

Officers told the man to drop the weapon, although that was 35 minutes later, after they finally arrived.

The man with the gun was arrested on charges of assault with a deadly weapon and improper dinner plates. He was booked and lodged at the Bass Lake town jail, awaiting extradition to a more secure holding cell elsewhere.

The wounded men were flown from the establishment by small-aircraft to a helicopter pad, then airlifted to Regional Corporate Hospital, then taken by ambulance to another medical center for treatment.

Injuries were “minimal, but significant,” reports said. Each is in stable condition, according to a receptionist close to the situation, although, she added, “One is more stable than the other.”

Identities of the gunman and the others are being withheld, pending arraignment, validation, verification, notification, background checks, a probe into safety measures at Airport Inn and other technicalities.

Experts could not pinpoint what started the altercation.

“At this point, we prefer pure speculation,” one expert said.

A witness-patron described the shooting as “just about as disturbing as you can get.”

“I don’t think I’ll eat there again,” she said. “Service was too slow.”