Pete Valverde, a 60-year-old White/Caucasian male from Stockton, was found on a quiet Labor Day weekend morning with a gunshot wound near West Hazelton Avenue and South Harrison Street in the city’s Seaport District. Officers arrived around 8:30 a.m. on Sunday, August 31, 2025, attempted lifesaving measures, and rushed him to a hospital, where he died. The San Joaquin County Medical Examiner later identified the victim as Pete Valverde, age 60.
Listings that memorialize victims of gun violence record his death as September 1, 2025, reflecting the grim end to a weekend already scarred by violence.
Even as investigators worked the scene, detectives began tracing a lead that would bring a quick break. By late afternoon that same day, Stockton police, joined by San Joaquin County sheriff’s deputies, stopped a suspect vehicle and took 72-year-old James Allen into custody during a traffic stop. He was booked into the county jail on suspicion of homicide along with narcotics-related offenses; authorities also noted firearm-related violations in subsequent reports. The arrest came less than ten hours after the shooting, a rare speed that underscored both the urgency of the case and the heightened police presence in the area.
Public updates in the days that followed filled in the outline but not the motive. Reports confirmed the location, the morning timeline, the victim’s age, and the suspect’s name, yet investigators did not release what led up to the shooting. The homicide was counted among Stockton’s late-summer caseload, with officials urging anyone with information to come forward as the case moved from shock at the intersection to filings and court calendars. The story of Pete Valverde, age 60, male, from Stockton, closed in a hospital corridor; the story of the man accused—James Allen, 72—opened in a jail log, awaiting the long, procedural march that follows an arrest for murder.
