James Huberty

"Society had its chance."

James Oliver Huberty was a mass murderer who perpetrated the San Ysidro McDonald's massacre, which was the third-deadliest incident of mass murder by a single perpetrator in U.S. history, behind the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre and the 1991 Luby's massacre.

Background
Born in Canton, Ohio, on October 11, 1942, Huberty contracted polio when he was three years old, which left him with a permanent difficulty on his walking. His life fell into a shambles when his mother left him upon refusing to move into an Amish country, and he has since been withdrawn. In 1962, he attended a Jesuit community college, where he later earned a Sociology degree, and also gained a license for embalming at the Pittsburgh Institute of Mortuary Science. At the institute, he met a woman named Etna and married her in 1965. Having two daughters, Zelia and Cassandra, together, Huberty and Etna moved the family to Massillon, Ohio, where the former found work as a funeral home undertaker. The family then moved to Huberty's hometown of Canton after a fire completely demolished their residence.

Both Huberty and Etna displayed signs of violent behavior, with the latter attempting to instruct Zelia to physically assault a classmate during a birthday party and then threatening the targeted classmate's mother with a 9mm pistol. As for Huberty, he had killed his dog after a neighbor complained about it damaging his vehicle. He also developed beliefs that foreign bankers were intentionally bankrupting the U.S. and breaking down society, leading to him purchasing thousands of dollars of non-perishable food and six firearms as preparations. Huberty and Etna were also violent towards one another.

Huberty later became involved in a motorcycle accident that left his right arm twitching uncontrollably, and he was forced to resign from his occupation as a welder. The family moved to San Diego, California, in San Ysidro neighborhood. There, Huberty became a security guard, only to be dismissed two weeks prior to the massacre. On the day before the massacre, Huberty called a mental health center, but his surname was misspelled and his call wasn't returned due to his statement that it wasn't an emergency. On July 18, 1984, the day of the massacre, he took his family to the San Diego Zoo, then they ate at a McDonald's restaurant.

The Massacre
After coming home from the restaurant, Huberty armed himself with his weapons and left his apartment, but not before telling Etna that he was "hunting humans" when she questioned his departure. During her interrogation, Etna provided no explanation as to why she didn't think of reporting her husband. As Huberty walked down San Ysidro Boulevard with his guns in plain sight, a witness spotted them and called the police, but accidentally gave them the wrong address. Meanwhile, Huberty walked into McDonald's and opened fire on patrons and employees, injuring and/or killing many. Into the shooting, then-patrol officer Miguel Rosario arrived on the scene, believing the incident to be accidental. He witnessed Huberty walk outside with his Uzi in his hand; Huberty promptly opened fire on the officer, forcing him behind a parked pickup truck. Rosario refused to return fire, believing that Huberty had accomplices that would back him up. So, he called for a Code 10 to send in SWAT, then a Code 11 to "send in everybody".

When SWAT arrived, Huberty fled back inside the restaurant and a standoff ensued. The officers readied themselves with the special equipment in their squad cars as reporter Monica Zech reported on the progressing events from the view of a small airplane flying overhead. The nearby Interstate 5 highway and Tijuana border crossing were forced to be closed down for the day, as both were right in the line of Huberty's fire. Finally, a sniper named Chuck Foster positioned himself at a post office beside the McDonald's restaurant and was able to get a good shot at Huberty, who was near a counter. Foster fired one shot that hit Huberty in the heart, killing him instantly. The entire event lasted for a total of 77 minutes, and when authorities entered the restaurant, they found 21 dead bodies, along with an additional 19 injured victims. A total of 257 bullets were fired by Huberty during the massacre.

Aftermath
Due to the amount of fatalities, the San Ysidro Civic Center had to be used to hold all the wakes for local funeral homes. The McDonald's restaurant was razed, with the property being reestablished as the Southwestern Community College's Education Center, with a memorial for the deceased victims at its front. Also, due to the fact that Huberty easily outgunned Officer Rosario with his Uzi submachine gun, San Diego increased its special police unit training and gave its officers high-power firearms so they could deal with similar situations in the future with ease. Additionally, psychiatric counseling was introduced to San Ysidro-based officers involved in traumatic incidents such as Huberty's massacre.

The families of the deceased victims banded together in an attempt to sue the McDonald's Corporation, but their case was appealed. In 1986, Etna also made an attempt to sue McDonald's, along with Huberty's former employer company Babcock and Wilcox, for $5 million. The claim she made was that Huberty's homicidal behavior was triggered by a combination of eating McDonald's chicken nuggets (which were filled with monosodium glutamate) and working around highly-poisonous metals (specifically lead and cadmium) induced his delusions and rage. While Etna's lawsuit didn't succeed, an autopsy did find high levels of lead and cadmium in his system.

Huberty's massacre seems to have also prompted a string of other massacres. First, on August 20, 1986 at Edmond, Oklahoma, a U.S. Postal Service worker named Patrick Sherrill used a pair of .45-caliber Colt 1911A1 pistols to kill fourteen employees and wound an additional six before committing suicide. Then, on October 10, 1991 at Ridgewood, New Jersey, another U.S. Postal Service worker named Joseph Harris shot and killed two employees at his workplace after killing his former supervisor and her boyfriend at their home. A month later, on November 14 at Royal Oak, Michigan, yet another U.S. Postal Service worker named Thomas McIlvane used a Ruger 10/22 rifle to kill four employees, then himself. Finally, on the most well-known occassion, a man named George Hennard committed a massacre similar to that of Huberty's on October 16, 1991, opening fire at a Luby's restaurant in Killeen, Texas, with two semiautomatic pistols, killing 23 and injuring 20. According to TruTV, Hennard was actually motivated to do so after watching a documentary about Huberty.

Modus Operandi
Huberty shot his victims with a long-barreled, 9mm Uzi submachine gun (the primary firearm used in the massacre); a 12-gauge Winchester pump-action shotgun; and a 9mm Browning HP semiautomatic pistol. His victims were mostly Mexican and Mexican-American; whether or not it was intentional or merely because of the area the massacre occurred at is unknown.

Known Victims
All of the following were attacked in the 1984 San Ysidro McDonald's massacre.

Fatalities
Note: The only source listing the victims' names has alphabetized the list, making it unclear as to who died after the other.
 * Elsa Borboa-Firro, 19
 * Neva Caine, 22
 * Michelle Carncross, 18
 * María Colmenero-Silva, 19
 * David Delgado, 11
 * Gloria González, 23
 * Omar Hernández, 11
 * Blythe Herrera, 31
 * Matao Herrera, 11
 * Paulina López, 21
 * Margarita Padilla, 18
 * Claudia Pérez, 9
 * Jose Pérez, 19
 * Carlos Reyes, 8 months
 * Jackie Reyes, 18
 * Victor Rivera, 25
 * Arisdelsi Vargas, 31
 * Hugo Vasquez, 45
 * Laurence Versluis, 62
 * Aida Victoria, 69
 * Miguel Victoria Ulloa, 74

Injuries

 * Ronald Herrera
 * Keith Thomas
 * Aurora Pena
 * Maria Rivera
 * Joshua Coleman
 * Alberto Leos
 * Jason Hall
 * Rosa Hall
 * Adam Hall
 * Kenny Villegas
 * Francisco Lopez
 * Eight other unnamed people

On Criminal Minds
Huberty was mentioned in the Season Five episode Public Enemy along with George Hennard as examples of mass murderers (though in the episode, they are erroneously referred to as spree killers).