Nearly four months after gunfire tore through a 2-year-old’s birthday party near Stockton, killing three children and a young man, San Joaquin County sheriff’s investigators are still asking for tips as they work a case with no public arrests.
The shooting shocked Stockton and the wider San Joaquin Valley because it happened at a family gathering packed with children, parents and relatives on Thanksgiving weekend. The sheriff’s office has said the attack appeared to be targeted, but investigators have not publicly identified who was being targeted or announced a motive. Since the first frantic calls on Nov. 29, the case has moved from emergency response to a long-running homicide investigation that now includes federal help, a six-figure reward and forensic work tied to two recovered cars.
Authorities say the shooting happened just before 6 p.m. on Nov. 29, 2025, at an event venue on the 1900 block of Lucile Avenue in the Stockton area, where more than 100 people had gathered for a toddler’s birthday party. Family members and guests were preparing to cut the cake when shots rang out inside the hall, and investigators later said the gunfire appeared to continue outside. San Joaquin County Sheriff Patrick Withrow said detectives quickly began treating the case as a large, fast-moving crime scene with many victims and witnesses. “This is a time for our community to show that we will not put up with this type of behavior,” Withrow said at a news briefing the next day, urging anyone with video, witness accounts or other information to come forward. No suspect was in custody then, and no suspect has been publicly identified since.
The four people who died were 8-year-olds Journey Rose Reotutar Guerrero and Maya Lupian, 14-year-old Amari Peterson and 21-year-old Susano Archuleta, officials said. The sheriff first reported 11 wounded victims, then local authorities later raised the number of injured to 13, bringing the total number of people shot to 17. At least one of the wounded was reported in critical condition in the first days after the attack. Investigators said the victims ranged from children to adults, underscoring how broad the toll was at an event meant to celebrate a child’s birthday. Officials have released little public information about the survivors’ medical recoveries, and they have not laid out a full timeline of where each victim was standing when the shooting began. They have said only that the gathering was large, that the shooting happened very quickly and that witness cooperation remains important to solving the case.
From the start, officials described the case as unusually complex. Sheriff’s spokesperson Heather Brent said early evidence suggested the attack was targeted, though investigators did not explain why they reached that conclusion. On Dec. 9, Withrow said detectives had recovered at least 50 shell casings from the scene, evidence that pointed to at least five different firearms being used. He also cautioned that the number of guns did not necessarily mean five shooters were present, because investigators still had to sort out whether anyone at the party returned fire. The sheriff said people responsible for the attack were believed to have worn dark clothing and face coverings, but he offered no fuller suspect description and no confirmed description of a getaway vehicle at that stage. He also said known gang members had been present at the party, while stressing that detectives had not determined whether gang rivalry was the motive. That careful language has remained a feature of the case: officials have disclosed fragments of evidence, but they have repeatedly said key parts of the motive and suspect picture remain unknown.
The killings landed hard in a city already familiar with deadly violence. Stockton recorded 54 homicides in 2024, according to city data cited by local officials in the days after the shooting, though leaders also said the homicide pace had been lower through much of 2025 before the party attack. Mayor Christina Fugazi said one of the slain 8-year-olds attended a local school and had a parent employed by Stockton Unified, a detail that quickly turned the case into a grief event for classrooms as well as neighborhoods. She said children who should have been writing Christmas lists were instead being mourned. The victims’ ages made the case stand apart even in a city that has endured repeated gun violence over the years. Community members soon gathered for vigils near the scene, where flowers, balloons, candles and handwritten notes built into a memorial. Those tributes stayed in place long after the television trucks left, turning the site into a public record of loss while detectives continued to ask for witness video and anonymous tips.
As the investigation widened, local, state and federal agencies added resources. By early December, the sheriff’s office said Stockton Crime Stoppers, the FBI Sacramento division, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Youth Peace & Justice Foundation had combined to offer as much as $130,000 for information leading to an arrest and conviction. Then, on Jan. 18, investigators publicly released surveillance images of two light-colored sedans believed to be connected to the attack and asked residents to help identify them. The next significant step came on Feb. 4, when the sheriff’s office announced it had recovered both vehicles. Authorities said the cars had been processed for evidence and that investigators were collecting DNA for comparison, but they did not disclose where the vehicles were found, who owned them or exactly how they were used in the shooting. No charges were announced with that development, and the sheriff’s office has not publicly tied any person to the cars as of March 22. That means the case remains in a procedural middle ground: detectives have physical evidence and vehicles of interest, but no named defendant and no court dates.
Relatives and community leaders have supplied the human details that official statements often leave out. Roscoe Brown, who works in Stockton’s Office of Violence Prevention, told The Associated Press that he raced back from Arizona after learning that the party for his brother’s granddaughter had become a mass shooting scene. Brown said two of his relatives were among the wounded and said the setting made the violence harder to understand. “You can’t shoot up a party,” Brown said. “That’s senseless. A kid’s party, at that.” His words echoed the anger and disbelief heard at vigils and news conferences in the days that followed. For investigators, those public moments also served another purpose: they kept attention on a case that risked going cold as weeks turned into months. For families, they marked the painful shift from emergency chaos to a slower wait for answers, arrests and, they hope, a prosecution that can explain why a child’s celebration became one of the region’s deadliest crimes of the year.
As of Sunday, March 22, no suspect had been publicly identified or charged in the case. Authorities have not announced a date for the next briefing, but investigators say the case remains active as they compare forensic evidence from the recovered cars with tips, video and witness accounts gathered since Nov. 29.
Author note: Last updated March 22, 2026.