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…