McDonald's massacre

(Redirected from James Oliver Huberty)

Categories: Spree shootings

The McDonald's massacre, sometimes called the McMurder, was an incident of mass murder at a McDonald's restaurant in San Ysidro, California (a suburb of San Diego), United States, on July 18, 1984.

Image:James Huberty mug shot.jpg
James Oliver Huberty.

The massacre was carried out by James Oliver Huberty, an alleged Vietnam War veteran and former welder from Canton, Ohio. In January 1984, Huberty had moved to San Ysidro with his wife and children, where he worked as a security guard until his dismissal one week prior to the murders. His apartment was located near the site of the shooting spree.

Huberty used a nine-millimeter Uzi carbine, a Winchester pump-action twelve-gauge shotgun, and a nine-millimeter Browning semi-automatic pistol in the restaurant, killing 21 people and wounding 19 others. Huberty's victims were predominantly Mexican and Mexican-American and ranged in age from eight months to 74 years. The massacre began at 4 p.m. and lasted for 77 minutes. Huberty had spent 257 rounds of ammunition before he was fatally shot by Chuck Foster, a SWAT team sniper perched on the roof next door. The 70 minute shooting spree is reconstructed in The Sett (1996), a book by Ranulph Fiennes, which deals with the subject of revenge killing.

It was later revealed that Huberty, although he had served in the military during the Vietnam War, never served in Vietnam and never saw combat. There was speculation that schizophrenia led him to believe that he had actually served in the war itself.

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Victims

The following people were killed:

  • Elsa Herlinda Borboa-Firro
  • Neva Denise Caine (the manager of the McDonald's)
  • Michelle Deanne Carncross
  • María Elena Colmenero Silva
  • David Flores Delgado (11 Years Old)
  • Gloria López González
  • Omar Alonso Hernández (11 Years Old)
  • Blythe Regan Herrera (Matao Herrera's mother)
  • Matao Herrera (11 Years Old)
  • Paulina Aquino López
  • Margarita Padilla
  • Claudia Pérez (9 years old)
  • Rubén Lozano Pérez (the Ronald McDonald Mascot)
  • Carlos Reyes (8 Months)
  • Jackie Wright Reyes (Carlos Reyes's mother)
  • Victor Rivera (A maintenance worker)
  • Arisdelsi Vuelvas Vargas
  • Hugo Luis Velazquez Vargas (A rising international banker)
  • Aida Velazquez Vazquez
  • Laurence "Gus" Versiluis (A truck driver stopping for coffee on his retirement day)
  • Miguel Victoria Ulloa
  • James Oliver Huberty (The perpetrator)
  • Alicia Victoria

Survivors included

  • Ronald Herrera
  • Keith Thomas
  • Aurora Pena
  • Maria Rivera
  • Joshua Coleman
  • Alberto Leos
  • Jason Hall
  • Rosa Hall
  • Adam Hall
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The Property

On 26 September 1984, McDonald's tore down the restaurant where the massacre occurred and gave the property to the city, which opened San Ysidro Southwestern Community College there. In front of the school is a memorial to the massacre victims, consisting of 21 hexagonal granite pillars ranging in height from one to six feet.

In 1986 Etna Huberty, his widow, unsuccessfully sued McDonald's and Babcock and Wilcox, James Huberty's longtime former employer, in an Ohio state court for $7.88 million, claiming that the massacre was triggered by the combined mixture of McDonald's food and work around poisonous metals. She alleged that monosodium glutamate in the food, combined with the high levels of lead and cadmium in Huberty's body, induced delusions and uncontrollable rage. An autopsy did reveal high levels of the metals, most likely built up from fumes inhaled during 14 years of welding.

Mental instability was probably one motive in the shooting. On the day before the massacre, Huberty had called a mental health center. Since he had not claimed there was an emergency, his call was not returned. Other likely factors include Huberty's heavy drug use and his reported resentment against Mexicans and Mexican Americans, whom he blamed for the loss of his job.

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External links