The music stopped with the first shot. Parents didn’t even have time to scream. In seconds, a child’s birthday party in Stockton turned into a killing ground — balloons drifting over bodies, tiny shoes left in the yard, frosting smeared beside blood. Neighbors thought it was fireworks. Then they heard the moth…

By the time officers arrived, the party was unrecognizable. Plastic cups lay crushed in the driveway, a toy truck lay on its side near the curb, and someone’s phone kept ringing from under a folding chair that had been knocked over in the panic. First responders moved from victim to victim while children, wrapped in blankets, watched from their parents’ arms, too stunned to cry. The cake, still uncut, sat abandoned on the table.

Now, Stockton is left with questions that feel heavier than answers. How does a neighborhood ever trust a sunny Saturday again? How do families explain to children why their friends aren’t coming back to school, why the balloons went up but the birthday never really happened? As detectives review footage and chase leads, a city quietly lights candles on sidewalks, trying to honor the lives shattered in a house that was supposed to hold nothing but joy.