A father who lost his 14-year-old son at the Stockton birthday party shooting over the weekend claims the gunman was aiming for rapper MBnel.
On Saturday, a suspected gang-related attack erupted at a children’s birthday party, leaving four dead and more than a dozen others wounded.
Three children, aged eight, nine, and 14, and a 21-year-old man were killed, with an additional 14 people injured, when gunfire erupted as the birthday cake was about to cut.
Patrick Peterson, the grieving father of victim Amari Peterson, 14, told KTVU he said it appeared the shooter was aiming for rapper MBnel.
“He started letting off shots and people were scrambling and falling, getting out of the way,” Peterson said.
MBnel, whose name is Johnel Dongon, survived the incident but was shot, according to his father, Junior Dongon, who told The New York Post his son was attending the birthday party for a friend’s two-year-old daughter.
MBnel had fled Stockton two years ago and was living on the outskirts of nearby Sacramento.
“He just came to drop off a present at his friend’s party, whose daughter was the celebrant,” the father said.
“He was shot, but he is okay … he called me and said, ‘don’t say anything to anybody’.”
MBNel is a Filipino-American rapper whose tracks “Feelings” and “Opulent” boast tens of millions of listens on Spotify. The rapper has hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram.
In a 2019 interview, he explained the origin of his name.
“Nel short for my name Jhonel and I just threw the MB in front. MB stands for MB muddy boys, Mudd bruddas, Mattie boys. We are the label you know what I’m saying, it has many meanings,” he said.
Another victim of the shooting who survived was local activist Jasmine Delafosse, according to the city’s former mayor, Michael Tubbs, who was speaking to ABC10. He told the station she was expected to recover.
“In speaking with her, she talked about sort of the pain and the trauma of being shot, of seeing young babies die, of the chaos, of the blood, of thinking about sort of ‘am I going to make it?’” he said.
“She also expressed deep condolences for the families who lost children.”
Tubbs told The Sacramento Bee in a separate interview about his belief that Stockton is unique, where it had pockets of violence, but said less than one per cent of the population drives 80 per cent of homicides. He also noted the tragedy of the shooting.
“No community, that no family, that no person deserves to have experienced,” he said.
“As someone who lost a cousin to gun violence, which is what prompted me to run for office the first time, I just know that trauma, that pain and that anger really never goes away, that sense of loss, that sense of being robbed.”
The venue where the shooting took place, on Lucile Avenue, may never open again.
Owner of the space, Willie Collins, told The Bee he had no intention of opening the venue soon, if at all.
“There’s no business there anymore,” he said. “It’s a memorial.”
Amari’s family has set up a GoFundMe to help with funeral arrangements for the 14-year-old. His mother, Kimberly Pangnanouvong, spoke about his death in an interview with the Stockton Record.
"My baby was innocent," she said. "We were just at the wrong place at the wrong time. Who would have known my baby wasn't gonna come home with me?”
“He was good in everything he did,” Pangnanouvong added. “He played basketball, football. I'm just lost for words. Just pray for me, my family, his friends, everybody that came across him. My baby was loved.”
The eight-year-old who was shot dead was a student at Stockton Unified School District, officials confirmed.
Meanwhile, family members told The Los Angeles Times that 21-year-old Susano Archuleta was also among those who was killed after being shot in the neck.
Police are yet to make an arrest or name any suspects. The FBI has offered a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of a suspect.
