Outside, Stockton’s leaders promise resources, justice,
and truth, but their voices tremble
with the same grief as the residents they address.
Social media fills with heartbreak and rage:
demands to get guns off the streets,
pleas for change, and prayers for the “babies”
who saw and suffered too much.
As the manhunt widens and sirens fade,
one question hangs over Stockton:
how do you ever celebrate again
in a place that now remembers every candle as a target?