Children were laughing minutes before the bullets started. Then screams, chaos, and bodies on the floor of a birthday party banquet hall in Stockton, California. Four people dead. Kids among them. At least ten more rushed to hospitals. A gunman on the run. A city holding its breath, begging for answers, desperate for jus…

The birthday decorations are still hanging inside the banquet hall, police tape fluttering just beyond the doorway where families once arrived with gifts and balloons. Now, the same families line the sidewalk in shock, clutching each other as they wait for news no parent ever wants to hear. Officials call the shooting “unthinkable” and “unfathomable,” words that barely touch the reality of children caught in a storm of bullets at what should have been a night of joy.

Outside, Stockton’s leaders promise resources, justice, and truth, but their voices tremble with the same grief as the residents they address. Social media fills with heartbreak and rage: demands to get guns off the streets, pleas for change, and prayers for the “babies” who saw and suffered too much. As the manhunt widens and sirens fade, one question hangs over Stockton: how do you ever celebrate again in a place that now remembers every candle as a target?