In Stockton — where a weekend shooting left at least three children dead — the legacy of mass shootings of children looms large both in the city’s memory and in the state’s legacy of confronting gun violence.
The San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that of the four people killed in Saturday night’s shooting, three were ages 8, 9 and 14.
Investigators said the attack initially appeared to be a targeted incident at a family gathering, and did not immediately identify a motive or a weapon, making the case far removed from America’s pattern of school shootings.
An earlier mass shooting in Stockton, of children about the same ages, became one of the most consequential gun violence cases in California history.
A few miles south and more than a generation earlier, on a January morning in 1989, a man walked onto the playground during recess at Cleveland Elementary School. He hoisted a Chinese-made AK-47-style assault rifle and began shooting.
Five children died in the shooting: Rathanar Or, 9, Ram Chun, 6, Sokhim An, 6, Oeun Lim, 8, and Thuy Tran, 6. Also wounded were 31 other people including one teacher.
In just three minutes, the gunman fired more than 100 times, before pulling a pistol and taking his own life.
The shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado was more than 10 years in the future, as was the string of school shootings and gun-control controversies that would follow. But at the time, in 1989, attention focused immediately on the weapon, and the gunman’s ability to purchase and use it, despite his criminal history.
Patrick Edward Purdy had a history of interactions with law enforcement, as well as drug abuse and repeated rounds of treatment for mental health issues.
But Purdy, while living in Sandy, Oregon, had legally purchased the assault rifle in 1988. Later, he bought magazines for it that would hold 30 rounds and 75 rounds each.
State lawmakers reacted swiftly to the public outrage, passing a bill that same year that identified semi-automatic assault weapons and placed restrictions on their possession, use and sale.
Republican Gov. George Deukmejian signed the bill into law in May, less than five months after the shooting. It was, according to the California State Library, the first such ban in the country.
Even at the time, a report on the case for the California attorney general noted the limits of such rules, writing, “Restrictions on assault weapons need to be national rather than California
only.”
The law was updated throughout the years that followed, and returned to the headlines in 2021 and 2023 when federal court rulings found it unconstitutional, a case that is still under appeal.
The tragedy also left an indelible mark on the community, with survivors forming Cleveland School Remembers, a nonprofit organization dedicated to honoring the victims’ memory. The organization recently held a 35th anniversary vigil at Central United Methodist Church to commemorate those lost and remind the community of the ongoing need to address gun violence in Stockton.
After Saturday night’s shooting, former Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs posted online that the city’s children “deserve to believe that they can reach adulthood.”
“Tonight,” he said, “we are reminded of the work that is left to be done.”
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