Buzz
There are few times more filled with excitement than a child eagerly awaiting their next birthday. With each passing night, they draw closer to their special day, going to sleep with a grin plastered across their face.
Naturally, it’s not just about the change of a number or the recognition of another year of growth that excites kids. It’s the chance to celebrate with friends, the laughter, the cake, and of course, the pile of presents waiting to be opened. In short, it’s the birthday that truly has a child jumping with joy.
While most children’s birthday parties are filled with fun and laughter, some take an unexpected turn. What starts as a celebration can quickly spiral into chaos, complete with police sirens and devastated faces. Here are just a few dreadful moments when an adult ruined the fun by bringing a gun to a child’s birthday party.
10. Chuck E. Cheese Birthday Party Shootout
In May 1977, Nolan Bushnell, the cofounder of the video game giant Atari, opened a new venture: a restaurant and entertainment complex that would go on to be a favorite hangout for children for years. This venue, initially named “Pizza Time Theatre,” marked Bushnell’s attempt to create a family-oriented video arcade during a time when arcades were mostly seen as places where troublemakers gathered.
At first, the entertainment came in the form of a group of robotic characters. Leading the group was a large, cigar-smoking rat with buck teeth and a distinctive Jersey accent. His name was Chuck E. Cheese. By the 1990s, the brand officially adopted the name Chuck E. Cheese for its franchise.
Now, with over 500 locations around the globe, Chuck E. Cheese remains a top spot for kids’ birthday celebrations. In 2014, the parent company of the chain was sold for a staggering $1.3 billion. But even with all the success and the never-ending birthday cake, the franchise sometimes faces challenges outside its control.
In late 2019, one such challenge came in the form of Marc Mathurin’s explosive temper. Mathurin’s ex-girlfriend, Aliyah Thomas, and her two-year-old son were enjoying a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese. They had been dropped off by Thomas’s new boyfriend, David Brooks.
Not included in the party, Brooks waited in his car in the parking lot. Ten minutes later, Mathurin left Chuck E. Cheese and headed straight for Brooks’s vehicle. According to Brooks, Mathurin then aimed a gun at him. “He pressed the gun against my head. The barrel touched me,” Brooks recalled. Remarkably, he escaped unharmed.
After the shot rang out, the atmosphere shifted from celebration to sheer panic. Inside, Thomas and her son were safe, but the commotion still affected them. She described the scene saying, “People came running in, screaming. There was so much chaos.”
Brooks immediately called 911, and soon the parking lot was filled with law enforcement. Although Mathurin attempted to resist arrest, the police managed to overpower him and place him in handcuffs.
Naturally disturbed by the event, Thomas couldn’t help but wonder how Chuck E. Cheese could improve safety measures for families. She said, “I’m left wondering, what more can they do? A metal detector? Increased security? Did they even have someone overseeing security?”
9. Dad Draws Gun Over Lack of Cake for Kids
Sometimes, we just end up missing out. Whether it's our fault or someone else’s, missing out is part of life. How we react to it can reveal a lot about who we are and how we’ll handle similar situations in the future.
For 48-year-old Joseph Hayes, it wasn’t so much about what happened to him, but rather what his children had to experience in June 2011. They were attending a birthday party for another child when the host ran out of cake and ice cream before Hayes’s kids got any.
This situation was simply unacceptable to Hayes, and he quickly lost his temper. He shouted, “Y’all didn’t save my kids no damn ice cream and cake.” Afterward, he stormed out of the party.
However, it didn’t end there. Soon after, Hayes returned with a small black handgun tucked in his waistband. According to the authorities, he approached the party host and declared, “I ain’t scared to go to jail, just take care of my kids.”
That’s when the host decided to call the authorities. After Hayes’s arrest, he claimed to the officers that he hadn’t brought a gun to the party. Instead, he argued, he had brought something that only resembled a gun. Regardless of his explanation, Hayes’s bail was set at $30,000.
8. Father Accidentally Shoots Himself While Performing Gun Tricks at Daughter’s Birthday Party
According to parents.com, the first thing parents should consider when hiring an entertainer for their child's birthday party is: What type of entertainer would best suit my child’s personality?
For one father from Humble, Texas, whose daughter was celebrating her 16th birthday, the question was a bit different: What kind of entertainment could he provide? Unfortunately for everyone involved, he chose gunslinging.
At some point during the celebration, the father, proud of his skills, pulled out his gun and began spinning it in his hand. In a strange turn of events, the gun discharged, and a bullet struck him in the stomach.
He was quickly rushed to the hospital with a gunshot wound to his abdomen. There has been no information released regarding the type of gun or whether it had been legally purchased.
7. Racists Disrupt Eight-Year-Old’s Birthday Party
On June 17, 2015, Dylann Roof opened fire, killing nine individuals at a prayer meeting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. The church’s origins date back to 1791, founded by a group of free blacks and slaves. In April 1962, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered a speech at the church.
Unsurprisingly, the nation was left reeling from the racist attack. Then, about a month later, a group of racists in Douglasville, Georgia, thought it would be a good idea to disrupt an eight-year-old black girl's birthday party.
Jose Ismael Torres and Kayla Rae Norton, both in their twenties, were among a group of 15 individuals driving around Paulding and Douglas counties in Georgia (located west of Atlanta) with their cars proudly displaying Confederate battle flags. Torres and the group were members of an organization called “Respect the Flag.” Judging by their actions, it’s clear that was about all they respected.
The group spent their time threatening African Americans and shouting racial slurs as they drove through various parts of Georgia. During their racist tour, they came upon an outdoor birthday celebration for an eight-year-old black girl.
The prosecutor handling the case stated, “Victims and witnesses from the party, mostly African American, testified that they saw the group of trucks with passengers hurling a barrage of racial slurs as they passed.”
Things took a darker turn when several members of the group exited their vehicles, approached the partygoers, and issued threats to kill everyone, including the eight-year-old black girl. At one point, Norton retrieved Torres’s shotgun, loaded it, and handed it to him.
During the trial, Torres claimed he had the shotgun for his personal safety. However, he later admitted that he had lied to the police about possessing the gun and had sold it before his arrest. Months following the incident, the group 'Respect the Flag' was charged as a street gang.
At the sentencing hearing, Hyesha Bryant, a witness from the party, spoke out on behalf of the victims. She said, “I never thought this would be something I’d have to go through in 2017. As parents and role models, we must teach our children the difference between right and wrong. That moment when you had the chance to walk away, you stayed.”
Torres was sentenced to 13 years in prison, while Norton received a six-year sentence.
6. Clueless Cops Raid Child’s Birthday Party
In 2019, a catastrophic mistake occurred when the Chicago Police Department executed a search warrant. Instead of the intended target, they stormed into a four-year-old child’s birthday party.
Stephanie Bures, the mother of the birthday boy, described the chaotic scene. The police forcibly entered her basement apartment, pointed firearms at her family, and ransacked their home. A shaken Bures recalled, “It’s terrifying. Can you imagine a four- or seven-year-old playing games with their friends, only to be confronted by men with guns aimed at them? I can’t even picture it.”
The police were reportedly searching for someone who hadn’t lived in the building for some time.
In response, the family filed a federal lawsuit. Their attorney, Al Hofeld Jr., painted a chilling image of the event, saying, “Instead of having his family sing happy birthday to him, four-year-old TJ endured police officers hurling insults and profanities, as well as cruel jokes.”
The Chicago Police Department issued a statement acknowledging the mistake: “[We make] every effort to ensure the validity and accuracy of all information used to apply for and execute search warrants, [but] errors do happen, and we take them seriously.”
Reverend Michael Pfleger from a nearby church had a piece of advice for law enforcement: “Treat the children and the houses that you are going into the same way that you treat your house or your children or want them treated.”
The officers involved in the botched raid were not wearing body cameras.
5. Gun-Wielding Masked Intruder Crashes Birthday Celebration
The coronavirus pandemic has brought many changes, including how birthdays are celebrated. With social distancing and stay-at-home orders preventing in-person gatherings, the “drive-by” has transformed from a criminal activity to a heartwarming gesture, as friends and family celebrate together from a distance.
In March 2020, a family in Oregon decided to celebrate a child’s birthday with a “drive-by” party. Friends and family drove past the house, shouting “happy birthday” from their car windows and honking their horns in joy. However, this display of celebration didn't sit well with the neighbor next door.
Annoyed by the cheerful commotion, 45-year-old Gabreial Russell put on a gas mask, grabbed his realistic BB gun, and stormed into the neighbor’s well-organized “drive-by” birthday party. While no shots were fired, Russell made several threatening remarks.
The police were soon called, and Russell was arrested without any trouble.
Court records later revealed that Russell had a history with law enforcement. In 2015, he was convicted on three counts of being a felon in possession of a firearm and served 13 months in prison.
4. The Boing-Boing Birthday Shooting
Trampoline parks, which first appeared in the early to mid-2000s, are now a widespread phenomenon, with more than 1,500 locations globally. Roller, a prominent provider of entertainment and leisure software, notes that a majority of visitors—around 77 percent—are under the age of 18.
In February 2020, an Atlanta trampoline park, 'Get Air,' became the setting for a children's birthday party gone awry. What started as a festive occasion turned violent when two family members began arguing in the parking lot. Tensions escalated when one of the men retrieved a gun from his vehicle and opened fire. The gunfire injured not only the man involved in the dispute but also an innocent bystander. Fortunately, none of the injuries were life-threatening.
Lieutenant Jake Smith of the Gwinnett County Police Department explained the situation: 'The argument spilled out of the building and into the parking lot, where one of the men went to his car, grabbed a gun, and fired at the other, a relative.'
After the dust settled, 33-year-old Gregory Durell Angrum was taken into custody and charged with two counts of aggravated assault.
3. A Wanted Man Was Heading Toward A Children's Birthday Party in the Park
In Austin, Texas, during the summer of 2019, a concerned caller dialed 911 to report a man in Pease Park carrying an assault rifle and a large knife. The caller also mentioned that the man seemed to be heading toward a nearby party filled with children.
A second caller provided police with the man's car's license plate number, which led to his identification as 23-year-old Dalton Broesche. He was found to have an active arrest warrant in another county.
Police quickly arrived at the park and located Broesche between a trail and a road. He was arrested based on the warrant and handcuffed for safety. The warrant was related to charges of assaulting his girlfriend and threatening a neighbor with a knife.
During a search of Broesche, police uncovered a variety of weapons, including a loaded 9mm handgun, an expandable baton, and two knives. The assault rifle described by the first 911 caller as an AR-15 semiautomatic was discovered near a main trail in Pease Park, already loaded with a 30-round magazine.
Austin resident and occasional Pease Park visitor Marie Fahlgren expressed her concerns about the incident: 'It’s terrifying. I have no idea what his intentions were in a park, a normally safe place like this, right in the heart of downtown in the middle of the day, with children around. I just don’t know.'
Broesche faced charges of deadly conduct and tampering with physical evidence.
2. A Dropped Gun Goes Off During a One-Year-Old’s Birthday Party
In 2018, gun accidents claimed the lives of 73 children under the age of 12 in the United States. One of the most tragic incidents involved a two-year-old from Maryland, who found a gun on a bed while the adults were sleeping. The child picked it up and accidentally shot himself fatally.
In December 2017, a gathering of family and friends at the Dolaj Catering Hall in Brooklyn to celebrate a child’s first birthday turned tragic. Everything was going well until one man removed his coat.
A gun slipped from his pocket, struck the floor, and went off. The bullet struck a 62-year-old woman in the right leg. The man quickly grabbed his firearm and fled the scene.
The woman was rushed to the hospital and later reported to be in stable condition. Thankfully, the one-year-old was unharmed. We could not confirm whether the shooter was apprehended by law enforcement.
1. A Quinceanera Interrupted by Gunshots
In pre-Hispanic times, a girl’s 15th birthday marked her transition into womanhood, signaling the start of her childbearing years. Today, the celebration of a quinceanera is more symbolic, often involving an elaborate party that can become quite costly.
A quinceañera is traditionally a celebration of a young woman’s transition into adulthood, typically marking the first time she wears makeup. Along with a cross, rosary, and scepter, the lucky girl is presented with a tiara and specially chosen shoes for the occasion. However, gunfire is not typically part of the festivities.
Tell that to the attendees of a quinceañera on August 31, 2019, at the Metroplex Event Center in Rogers, Arkansas.
According to 27-year-old Salvador Aldaco Jorge, the shooting was a casual, everyday occurrence. Jorge told police that while he and a friend were hanging out behind the bar, he mentioned having an 'open carry.' His friend then encouraged him to shoot, saying, 'Okay, go for it.'
After some brief conversation, Jorge took out his gun and fired two shots into the air. A nearby security guard quickly intervened, disarming Jorge. The police later estimated the damage to be $1,500.
Jorge was charged with multiple crimes, including aggravated assault, committing a terroristic act, discharging a firearm within city limits, and first-degree criminal mischief.
