Horror lingers at kid's party space

Relatives return in shock to Stockton banquet hall a day after deadly shooting.

- BY JESSICA GARRISON AND HANNAH FRY

THE HOST of the birthday party, center, is consoled by a friend Monday. "Who thinks this would happen at a baby birthday party?" a family member said.

The sun was beginning to set Sunday when members of a Stockton family pulled open the metal door of a banquet hall that a day earlier had been the venue for a 2-year-old's birthday party a joyful affair that ended in violence and heartbreak.

Inside, the family confronted a scene of horror.

A grandmother put a hand over her mouth and looked like she might faint. A woman picked up a child’s shoe, which had ended up between a bouncy house and a wall splattered with blood. A father began to grimly gather birthday presents, still in their festive party wrapping and, remarkably, untouched by the gore and carnage strewn around them.

In an act that left this gritty San Joaquin Valley city in a state of numb fear, a gunman or gunmen had crashed their child’s birthday party Saturday night. They had unleashed a barrage of gunfire from an automatic weapon across a room filled with children in their party finery, playing amid balloons and a swan-shaped bouncy house.

Bullets tore through the event space just as people were sitting down to dinner. Four people were killed, including three children. Eleven others were wounded. Panicked guests tried to perform CPR on their loved ones or fled over fences and down country lanes shaded by 100-year-old trees. Some had been shot and trailed blood as they scrambled to safety.

The gunmen disappeared into the darkness.

San Joaquin County sheriff's officials are continuing to search for them. The department suspects that multiple shooters were involved. The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and FBI are assisting in the investigation.