Family members were getting ready to cut the cake at a toddler’s birthday party when the gunfire started inside a banquet hall packed with relatives and friends over the weekend in California. 

“I actually thought it was my balloons popping. It was gunshots,” said Patrice Williams, the birthday girl’s mother. 

Her daughter, who turned two years old, was uninjured. 

But Williams said her sister, a cousin and three of her friends were shot in the burst of violence Saturday evening in Stockton. 

Three children ages 8, 9 and 14 and a 21-year-old were killed at the hall where at least 100 people were gathered, San Joaquin County Sheriff Patrick Withrow said. 

Detectives believe the gunfire continued outside and there may have been multiple shooters.

Eleven people were wounded, and at least one is in critical condition, Withrow said. 

No one is in custody. 

The sheriff urged anyone with information to contact his office with tips, cellphone video or witness accounts.

Sheriff’s spokesperson Heather Brent said earlier that investigators believe it was a “targeted incident.” 

Officials did not elaborate on why authorities believe it was intentional or who might have been targeted.

Hours after the shooting, the Stockton Police Department arrested five people, including a juvenile, on weapons and gang-related charges. 

There was no indication that the arrests were connected to the killings at the banquet hall, the sheriff said.