The San Ysidro Massacre
Without question, the worst crime ever committed inside a McDonald’s restaurant took place in San Ysidro, California. At approximately 4:00 PM on July 18, 1984, 41-year-old James Oliver Huberty stormed into a McDonald’s wearing a black T-shirt and military-style pants. His only words were “Freeze!” before he opened fire on the restaurant’s patrons.
Huberty told the diners to lie on the floor. Whether they did this or not didn’t matter. Huberty shot them anyway. The gunman—who was armed with a shotgun, an Uzi carbine, and a handgun—also shot and killed two young boys who rode their bicycles too close to the store. All told, Huberty killed 21 people during a siege that lasted over one hour. Five of the dead were younger than 11 years old, with one victim being a four-month-old infant.
The 77-minute massacre (some sources say 78) was captured by live television cameras and streamed into the homes of millions of horrified Americans, thus making it one of the first mass shooting spectacles. It was later discovered that Huberty, a native of Canton, Ohio, was a father who was anything but normal.
Huberty had studied mortuary science as a young man, had a history of domestic violence, and was known to be paranoid about suspected government plans to bankrupt the United States. Prior to carrying out the murders, Huberty had moved his family to Tijuana, Mexico. Then they rented an apartment just a few blocks away from the targeted McDonald’s.
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