The cake for a 2-year-old birthday girl was about to be cut when gunfire rang out in a banquet hall in Stockton, California, Saturday night, claiming the lives of four people, including three children.
"I actually thought it was my balloons popping. It was gunshots," Patrice Williams, the mother of the girl, who was uninjured, told The Associated Press. She said partygoers nearby dropped to the ground at the sound of the gunshots, calling the moment "unexpected."
"I don’t know what happened, and I’m just so shocked and lost,” Williams said, according to the AP.
Williams said she and her family were celebrating her daughter's second birthday over the weekend when the mass shooting occurred. Williams told AP that another daughter, a cousin and three of her friends were shot.
Three kids ages 8, 9 and 14 were killed, as well as a 21-year-old, Patrick Withrow, the sheriff of San Joaquin County said. Eleven others were injured at the gathering of at least 100 people when gunshots rang out shortly before 6 p.m.
At least one of the injured was in critical condition Sunday, Withrow said. The conditions of the other 10 have not been made available.
A suspect has yet to be identified, and Withrow said Sunday that "there appears to be multiple shooters."
The shooting appeared to begin inside the banquet hall before spilling onto the streets. Authorities have said it remains unclear whether anyone returned fire.
Williams told the AP that she did not get a good look at the shooter and does not know who would commit such violence at her child's party.
"They deserve to be in jail. They deserve to go to hell," Williams said, according to the AP. "I'm sorry, but I just ... it's not respectable. It's a kids' party."
Authorities have said that the shooting appeared to be targeted. Stockton Mayor Christina Fugazi has said gang violence is suspected as a motive, but Withrow said Sunday it was too early to determine if the shooting was a result of gang violence. He did say that authorities are "confident that this was not a random act."
Officials have called on the public for help identifying potential suspects and have urged anyone with information about Saturday night's attack to reach out.
While authorities have not released the names of the victims, family members have begun to identify their own online.
Fugazi told reporters that the 8-year-old victim attended a local school and had a parent who worked for the Stockton Unified School District, but did not name the victim, the AP reported.
Roscoe Brown, who told the AP the party was for his brother's granddaughter, said his niece and nephews were shot, and that he knows several other victims. He did not have information about their conditions.
Brown works for the city of Stockton's Office of Violence Prevention and did not respond to a request for comment sent by NBC News on Monday.
"Who would come and do that to some kids, you know?" Brown told the AP after a Sunday afternoon vigil, "You can't shoot up a party. That’s senseless. A kid's party, at that."
