Stockton neighborhood saw a downturn in deadly violence. Then came a mass shooting

BRANDON HERNANDEZ WAS MAKING REPAIRS behind his north Stockton home when bullets punctured his garage — and one sailed clear through the house, from front wall to rear window. Wii Dao heard cracks that sounded like fireworks and cars roaring through the streets. And William Hendricks returned home from a family trip to Oregon to find “hordes of officers everywhere.”

All three men live in the eclectic, 1950s neighborhood surrounding Lucile Avenue, a grassy community some residents said had experienced some respite from deadly violence in recent years — until the Saturday night one week ago when a mass shooting at a child’s birthday party showered the neighborhood with gunfire.