San Ysidro McDonald's massacre

Did You Know?

• The 1988 film Bloody Wednesday is loosely inspired by the massacre.
• The 2016 documentary 77 Minutes: The 1984 San Diego McDonald's Massacre features interviews with survivors and the SWAT sniper who ended the massacre.

Chain of events

On July 15, 1984, James Huberty told his wife Etna he suspected he had a mental health problem. Two days later, on the morning of July 17, he called a San Diego mental health clinic requesting an appointment. He left his contact details and was told the clinic would return his call within hours. According to his wife, Huberty sat quietly by the telephone for several hours waiting for the return call, then abruptly left on his motorcycle.

The receptionist had misspelled his name as "Shouberty," and because his polite demeanor conveyed no urgency and he had never been hospitalized for mental health issues, the call was logged as a "non-crisis" inquiry to be handled within 48 hours. About an hour later, Huberty returned home in a contented mood. After dinner, he, his wife, and their two daughters cycled to a nearby park. That evening he and Etna watched a movie together.

The following morning, July 18, the family visited the San Diego Zoo. During their walk, Huberty told his wife he believed his life was effectively over, and referring to the clinic's failure to return his call, said, "Well, society had their chance." After lunch at a McDonald's in Clairemont, the family returned home. Shortly afterward, Huberty entered the bedroom wearing a maroon T-shirt and green camouflage slacks as his wife lay on the bed.

He leaned toward her and said, "I want to kiss you goodbye." When she asked where he was going, he replied he was "going hunting... hunting for humans." Carrying a gun, a box of ammunition, and a bundle wrapped in a checkered blanket, he glanced at his 12-year-old daughter and said, "Goodbye. I won't be back."

He drove down San Ysidro Boulevard, first toward a Big Bear supermarket and then a post office, before entering the parking lot of a McDonald's about 200 yards from his apartment.

Shooting

At approximately 3:56 p.m. on July 18, Huberty drove his black Mercury Marquis sedan into the McDonald's parking lot on San Ysidro Boulevard. He carried a 9mm Browning HP semi-automatic pistol, a 9mm Uzi carbine, a Winchester 1200 12-gauge pump-action shotgun, and a box and cloth bag filled with hundreds of rounds of ammunition. Forty-five customers were inside. Entering the restaurant, he first aimed his shotgun at 16-year-old employee John Arnold from about fifteen feet.

Assistant manager Guillermo Flores shouted a warning. When Huberty pulled the trigger, nothing happened because the shotgun was jammed. As manager Neva Caine, 22, walked toward the counter, Huberty fired his shotgun at the ceiling, then aimed the Uzi at Caine and shot her once beneath her left eye; she died minutes later. He then fired his shotgun at Arnold, wounding him in the chest and arm, and shouted for everyone to get on the ground.

He called those present "dirty swine, Vietnam assholes," claimed he had "killed a thousand" and intended to "kill a thousand more.

Aftermath

The day after the massacre, reporters visited James Huberty's father in Mount Eaton, Ohio. After discussing his son's childhood and the family's religious background, Earl Huberty pointed to a painting of a lost sheep by the Jordan River, began to weep, and told reporters: "Yesterday was the worst day of my life. I feel so sorry for those people." McDonald's temporarily suspended all television and radio advertisements in the days following the massacre; arch-rival Burger King also temporarily suspended all forms of advertising in solidarity.

Huberty's body was cremated on July 23, 1984, with no official religious service. His ashes were returned to his widow and later interred in Ohio. In the weeks after the massacre, Huberty's wife and daughters received numerous death threats, forcing them to temporarily reside with a family friend. All three attended counseling sessions for more than nine months.

They initially relocated from San Ysidro to Chula Vista, where the daughters enrolled in school under assumed names; one year later they moved to Spring Valley in San Diego County. Because of the number of victims, local funeral homes used the San Ysidro Civic Center for wakes, and Mount Carmel Church held back-to-back funeral masses. Several police officers who responded suffered symptoms including sleep withdrawal, loss of memory, and guilt; a 1985 study commissioned by the National Institute of Mental Health concluded several officers had post-traumatic stress disorder.