Stockton Leaders Urge City to Invest in Youth After November Mass Shooting

Weeks after a shooting at a children’s birthday party in Stockton killed four young people, community groups are calling for more support and compassion for the victims.

Nonprofit and faith leaders on Thursday urged leaders to invest in the city’s youth and neighborhoods, which they say have faced years of disinvestment.

“Gun violence does not appear out of nowhere,” said Peter Elias, a youth leader with the Reinvent South Stockton Coalition. “It is produced by condition, by decades of policy decisions that stripped resources from neighborhoods, normalized trauma and left young people and left young people surrounded by loss with few pathways forward.

“Our response to violence … must be prevention. It must be investment,” he said.

On Nov. 29, four people, ages 8, 9, 14 and 21, were killed after gunfire erupted during a large family gathering celebrating the birthday of a Stockton 2-year-old. At least 13 more people were injured in the incident, which authorities believe involved multiple shooters.

Law enforcement officials at the time said they believed the shooting began inside the banquet hall on Lucile Avenue in Stockton, where the party was taking place, and later spilled outside, where more people were gathered.

The community leaders gathered on Thursday said that in the weeks since, they have been connecting victims’ families with counseling and social services, as well as material needs they cannot meet, like food, clothing and burial support.

Much of that work has been coordinated by the San Joaquin County Youth Justice Coalition, which gathered the group on Thursday.

“Community organizations, faith leaders, youth advocates and mental health professionals are stepping up because far too often, the systems that are supposed to support families arrive late, or do not come at all,” Elias said.

The speakers warned against spreading narratives around what led to the shooting or placing blame. While Sheriff Patrick Withrow has said that the department is confident the shooting was a targeted act, no arrests have been made.

The day after the shooting, Mayor Christina Fugazi said it had been gang-related, but the San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office did not confirm that allegation. They have not identified a motive.

“Our commitment has been and continues to be to show up with compassion,” Pastor Henry B. Phillips of The Open Door House of Prayer said. “False narratives can cause harm and deepen wounds. Our young people deserve care, not condemnation; they deserve understanding, not blame; And healing, not harm.”

The shooting led to tensions among city leaders this week, after Vice Mayor Jason Lee told the Stockton publication The Center Square that other officials had delayed a vote to ban face coverings just days before the shooting. In the article, he was quoted as saying that not passing the ban allowed criminals to get away with violent crimes.

Fugazi appeared to respond to that claim during a council meeting on Wednesday, saying: “To blame me for the mass shooting, and council for the mass shooting, is reckless and irresponsible. The fact that because there was a ski mask involved, somehow taking that off … would’ve stopped that shooting? Does anybody think that?”

Thursday’s speakers called on the city leaders to focus instead on providing funding and resources to youth communities and neighborhoods that have faced disinvestment in recent years to prevent violence before it starts.

“We have a choice,” said Bobby Bivens, the president of Stockton’s NAACP chapter. “Do we allow leadership and governance not to recognize that our community is hurting? We have elected officials who promised people that they were coming in to improve the quality of life, but that has not happened.

“We’re calling on leadership in this community … to reach the young people that you see instead of ignoring our past. We’re calling on the Stockton community … to address the violence in our community,” he continued.