Memorializing the Victims and Final Thoughts

Adobe Firefly is the all in one creative studio with AI powered image and video editing for today's creative process built for creators of every kind Firefly helps you generate, edit, and experiment fast Because the asks aren't getting smaller The budgets aren't getting bigger, and the timelines, oh yeah, still tight With all the best creative AI models in one place, Firefly brings your ideas to life. Unlock a better way to make with Adobe Firefly. Gyigo presents a thirty second podcast between your podcast Today's story is shared by one of our listeners. It's called Betrayed by Bill It was in that moment I caught who was staring back at me in betrayal, or more like what My insurance bill ith trembling hands I grabbed my phone and switched to Geiko, saving about nine hundred dollars in the prootest, and never to be betrayed again. Now that was bloody riveting. It feels good when the story ends with savings. It feels good to Gaiko B Bri Reynolds here from Mid Mbile I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same premium wireless for fifteen dollarars a month plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities. so do like I did and have one of your assistant's assistants switch you to MintMobile today. I'm told it's super easy to do at mintmobile dot com slash switch. Upfront payment of forty five dollars for three month plan, equivalent to fifteen dollars per month required. intntro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. Feful terms at mintMobile dot com d Hey, weirdos, I'm Ash and I'm Eena. and this Coolin Morbid Pollen is destroying everybody's lives. over here. Is Pollen eating your insides alive? Yeah, is Pollen Raise your hand if you've been personally victimized by Pllen. Everybody shoots hands in the like. Pollen is rough Right now, we had an air quality alert yesterday that was like, hey, you should probably stay insideide. I'm getting murdered by Pllen. like it's bad. It's really, really bad. I've never had allergies this bad in my I've never had allergies. period really And I do be having not only allergies, but guess what I have asthma. Yeah. all of a sudden. The doctor said Honey You have asthma. And I said, I haven't had asthma since I was a child. I thought it went away. And they said no. He said, It doesn't quite work like that. So Alina is taking one from the team and she took the up for me because I'm hacking up alung I'm out of breath Yeah. there was no way I was I was gonna make her talk for an entire hour or so, however long this will be. Honestly, you guys wouldn't have wanted to hear it. Yeah. We don't need her hacking all over, you know? I don't I don't want to hack on you and what you're going through with Pallin already. Yeah, you know But I do have something for you. Yeah, because it's my birthday today if you're listening. it's like in a couple days if from now. But if you're listening when this comes out, it' be Ash's birthday. So we have a sale for you on the Morbid Merch store, which is at Sirius. Let me actually give you the actual website Okay, so it's literally just Sirus XM store And then there's another one for if you don't live in this country, and that's in our Instagram bio. Yeah. But the if you use the code ash sale AH sale, then you can get twenty five percent off your order. Yay. really fun. We have a couple new things in the store. We have The candle, which smells so fucking good. We pick the scent specifically. We did. We have the horned hoodie, which I'm really excited about We have the Nicolas shirt. if you're a Nicholas supporter. I love the Nicolas shirt. I've also seen a lot of you coming around on Nicolas. I have too and it warms my heart. Yeah. It really does. And this shirt is how you can show your support. Show your support for good old Saint Nick. Yeah, who is not Saint Nick, but he's our Nick. He's ouraint Nick. We need to post that video from when we unpacked the printer Oh yeah. because I think I think we can speed it up a little bit. Yeah.. And I think Nicholas visited us. Yeah, I think Nicholas was helping me put away. from the printer that I was unboxing. And he was like, you have more room in this box. Let me push this stuff down for you. Be I was sitting there just watching as all of the packing stuff was being slowly pushed down. And it was all like like obviously things rustle. when we put them back in a box. So at first we were like, o okay, maybe it's just that But then it continued for three minutes. Yeah And like There was like one specific part in the video where it just like boom. Yeah just pushes down. Really pushes down like aggressively. So I'm gonna to post the sped up version of this. This is a little strange. Yeah. A a little strange. Paranormal if you will. But yeah, use that code Ash sale. Hell twenty five percent off. That's a good deal. P pretty sick. So if you are waiting It's almost like you'reing twenty five. Almost, but you're not, I'm not I'm not. Look at her. now she's calling N old. I was gonna say you've had fun. I mine now Ash Ash is the big three O, everybody. by my twenties. I am. I'm having a funeral for my twenties. Honestly thirties are when things get awesome. I'm so ready to leave my twenties in the dust A lot of great things happened like in the later years of my twenties But like the early to mid of my twenties, quite bit quite one, if you will Uh, well We have a Tod This was Ash's case at first, so I got the pleasure of reading this and going Oh. I said here. I did half of this. I said Oh my other half. Yeah. So I read through this and said, Oh my. Yeah, I'm sorry. We're covering the Sanny Sedrow McDonald's Massacre today. This is a really, really brutal j. Yeah I would like to give a big, big trigger warning right off the bat I'm not going to this isn't going to be gruesome in the sense of me explaining everyone's injuries or anything like that This is a mass shooting. That can be very triggering for people I completely understand if this episode is one, you say, Hey, I'll see you on Thursday. Totally. Totally get it But again, I'm not going to get crazy with my descriptions But this is Rough It is And it's scary And it's herrific and he's a monster and It's a really rough one. So I just I need you to know that right out the bat right out the gate that But this is rough and it's a mass shooting. So again If that is something that you are like, this is just not one of the ones that I can do. We totally understand. Yeah. We totally get it. So like we'll see you Thursday. if that's the case. We'll miss you We get it But it is a story that needs to be told because one, these people lost their lives., theseese innocent people who were just going to McDonald's. And there was just so many warning signs in this case from the time that Jim, who is the Jim was the mass murderer Jim Huberty There's so many signs around the time that he was a small child He should have received help. Yeah. L I don't know exactly what help or what it would have done But he needed something he needed something. Yeah And also coincidentally, it's men's mental health awareness Oh. So this is kind of this kind of fits really perfect in this because ye. there were several times that people around him said, ye, it was so crazy He like said he was going to kill everybody and he couldn't wait to, you know, shoot things into people's flesh. and Yeah, he's weird guy. L he conently talked about like destroying people's bs. It's like I don't know sometometimes it's okay to reach out and say, yeah y this person is speaking in a way that makes me think he might hurt someone. It's okay. Like you can do it anonymously. Exactly. This was in the, you know, this was in the eighties you know, growing up in the seventies and stuff, things were a little different for sure. L it was not peopleople they were not out here getting help for especially men's mental health proble We grew like in the Midwest, which obviously like a totally different culture. There are factors here that for sure we can look back with the hindsight of twenty twenty six and say, why didn't anybody do anything? Things were different, so we do have to use those lenses to look at it. Yeah. But now in twenty twenty six If someone around you Is making these kind of statements or acting these kind of call someone It's you see something say something. It's like you can you can do it anonymously, but like just Whenever you can, try to because you can avoid catastrophes like this and also like person needs help. Yeah. like he needed to be this man needed to be he's like a he's like a bad person at his core. Well, that's the thing. He's like he's like mentally ill man at his core. He's also racist. Yeah. He's also He beats his own children. like he's his daughters. he beats his wife. like He's at his core, Jready is an evil piece of shit Yeah And that's the thing that I think we all need to realize is you can be two two things can be true on. abbsolutely. He can be mentally ill. And he can also be a really fucking bad person. Yeah. Not everybody who's mentally ill is a really great person and they just suffer from this thing. Of course, there are plenty of people who are really good people, who are kind and good people and suffer mental illness and do things they normally wouldn't have done Yeah and don't want to do That is one hundred percent after the case, be honest There is also cases when somebody is violently mentally ill and and does need extensive help but is also just a really bad person at their call and would have done something bad. regardless of the mental illness possibly. So Jim Huberty to me falls into that category. He's just a bad person. I agree. He's not nice. He's violent to children, he's violent to women. He's violent to men. he's violent to He's horrible. and he says horrible things. He He's just not wanted to be person to him. like he just yeah. and he seemed like he was that way from pretty young. So So that is that is definitely one of those situations here. And again, this is a tough one, but we're going to get into it. All right, so everybody. Mark your timers. Yep, here we are On the evening of july fifteenth, nineteen eighty four, James Hubberty and his wife Etna We're sitting on the couch watching TV when James, who was better known as Jim casually mentioned that He thought he was experiencing symptoms of mental illness. Atna had long suspected that something was going on with Jim. He had violent mood swings. He couldn't regulate his emotions at all. He had a crazy explosive temper. He was very violent. He was also a racist. and that was the first time she'd ever heard him acknowledge his struggles pretty directly. I do wonder what all of a sudden made him realize that something was off Be like we said in the beginning for so much of his life It was like that. I'm like he was just from whales for his whole life. So I don't know what made him just go I think I need help I wonder if he knew I think he did At this point, I think he said I'm going to do something real bad. if I and maybe there was a small part of him that was like I should probably try to stop myself and I wonder if he also was looking at this as Okay, if they accept me because he does call for help If they accept this and they help me, then then that's how it's supposed to be Yeah. But if they decide not, then they are proving everything that I believe about the government, about society, about human beings. your spottle. And then they deserve it. spot. I think that's exactly what is unfortunately U, and this is another this mental health help back then. Pretty bad prettytty bad. And even now We always need to get better. So this is a good little thing about that. So yeah, so Anana became even more hopeful a few days later when she noticed him on the phone with a local mental health center So she was like, what are you doing? And he said he had called to make an appointment And at the time, there was no one available to take his call. Which already you're like, good. What do you mean But there no he called during lunch on purpose. Yeah, exactly. But the receptionist at the center took his information and said someone would get back to him within a few hours Now when he spoke to the receptionist He was polite, he was calm. He sounded composed. So there was no reason for them to suspect this is back then that he was in crisis Now we know now someomeone in crisis is not always screaming and yelling and crying. They are not always saying something crazy or quote unquote, crazy that you think is going to like really cause some damage. Like I think now we're a lot more well versed on the idea that somebody in crisis is not always the typical crisis that you're thinking in your mind According to them, he didn't say anything to indicate that he was. so the call was logged as non crisis No in crisis calls were returned in the order they received, typically within forty eight hours. Unfortunately, the receptionist also mishheard his name when he gave his last name, and she wrote it down as Shuberty Now even more unfortunate, by the time his message came up in the queue to be returned, it was too late James Huberty had already killed twenty one people and was killed by the San Diego pololice snipers bullet So James Huberty's shocking killing spree and violent deeath was definitely just the period on a life filled with a lot of chaos and a lot of a lot of like we were saying times when someone should have stepped in Warning signs. He was born october eleventh, nineteen forty two in Canton, Ohio. He was the second of two children born to Earl and Iael. Just a few years later When he was three years old, Jim contracted polio. Yeah and had to wear leather and metal braces for a long period of time I mean, thanks to the braces, he was able to walk again, but they caused him to have a different walk than he might have had before And according to one of his primary school teachers, that alone was enough to make him the target for bullies. And the other children made fun of him and were just kids suck. Yeah, like get it together and teach your kids not to be assholes.ome fun of somebody with polio. My God, if I ever found out my kids were making fun of someone for the way they walked have we'd have a talk When Jim was seven years old, his father bought a one hundred and fifty five acre farm in M, Mount Eaton. That was about twenty miles away from Canton and he moved the Almost the whole family. Almost. Jim's mother. was pretty resistant to the idea from the start and just refused to move with her family which is wild. Instead, she packed her bags, headed west and joined a Pentecostal missionary group abandoning her entire family. Yeah, great So obviously, this was extremely hard on Jim and his sister, Ruth He would like like his father would just find him like crying like at various times the property just all over the property, whichich is really like obviously you can feel bad for the kid version of him awful. Yeah. You had your mom for seven years of your life and then she's like she just to you because she's like I don't like moving Okay Now at school, Jim was taunted and mistreated by, you know by peers from everything from his appearance, the way he walked to the fact that his mother abandoned him Like Imagine people making fun of you because you were abandoned as a child What about that is funny? I don't know My brain can't wrap around it. It literally can't. What's its also just like, what's the joke That's what is the joke? Laul, your mom left and it's like Okay. That's funny too. What is the joke? Like I don't understand what the Like it's so r the punch It's so fucked up. So he was unable to make friends a lot of the time. He spent a lot of his time alone or with the family dog, just Developing a really sullen and angry temperament I feel like for children to be alone and isolated for too long being mistreated by their peers. At the same time is just truly a recipe for disaster. Especially when nothing else is being done. And then you have like Abandonment from a mom. Yeah and fuck a kid up. Yeah.ly. So just Lots of lotots of little redents heing Now when he reached junior high, he started to develop a strong interest in guns and shooting and he would spend the rest of his life obsessively cultivating his own collection. The word obsessive, it's like That doesn't even begin to describe it. He was Yeah, he was a gun. Yeah, he literally was. Now years later, his former coworkers in Ohio would describe him to a reporter as fanatical That's not a good way to be. withith one supervisor saying he had a lot of guns and he always said that he wanted to kill a lot of people If somebody is Always saying that they want to kill a lot of people you have a problem because like also, What was your response to that Okay, Jim Like Also This whole case had me wondering, Does any place that he works have an HR department? I don't know if HR departments back them were just like Yeah. I don't know what they were doing, but it's like If he's at work saying he has a lot of guns and he really wants to kill a lot of people You got toa call someone. You gotta call someone But at the time He was just a lonely like again, this was years later that that was being happening, but we're staying in the past here. because at the time he was just a lonely boy who had found a way to pass the time And in a rural place like Mount Eaton, guns and shooting were not exactly uncommon. It's not like this was a weird fixation that Hain was like a big deal. Yeah. I mean, he lives on a farm Now throughout his high school years, he kind of kept a low profile. He didn't join any teams or clubs You had like a few friendships, maybe He really just spent most of his time at home enthusiastically pursuing his hobby of guns. By the time he was in his late teens, he had become something of like a He was like an amateur gunsmith, really. He learned how to make and load his own ammunition, alter his weapons Making small improvements to things like grip and sights scary when you know what the outcome is for sure Now after graduating from high school, he enrolled at Malone College, a small Quaker school in Kenton And he studied socialciology there before dropping out two years later and moving to Pennsylvania where he went to the Pittsburgh Institute of Mortuary Science. After graduating in nineteen sixty three, he found work as a mortician' apprentice at a local funeral home And during that time, he became a licensed embalmer and mortician. His former employer, Don Williams said, I told him he was in the wrong business. He was a good embalmer, but he just didn't relate to people. Yeah. You don't say. It turned out that at least on some level, Jim agreed. becausecause within a year of being licensed in Ohio, he'd quit the mortuary business altogether and taken a job as an assembly line worker at a local factory Changing careers wasn't the only big change in his life at the time, though He'd also started dating at N Markland And in nineteen sixty five, they got married at Trinity Gospel Temple in Centon, Ohio I just wonder like her meet cute was. I wonder what she saw in him Right because no one liked him. Nobody liked him. He was very miserable all the time. And I also just wonder like Did they get through their first date without him mentioning that he wanted to kill a lot of people? That's the thing. I'm like he seems like he is just you see any of the people talking about him and everyone's like, he was just a miserable person to be around. Not because he was sad all the time, he was mean and angly horrible said horrible shit and would talk about killing people. He liked to talk about the different bullets and the like damage they inflicted on human flesh. Nobody wants to talk about that what Is it about him? I figured this is the kind of guy that would stay alone forever. I know But no From the moment he first met Jim, the pastor who married the couple, David Lombardy actually had reservations about the relationship and the marriage completely. He said he had real inner conflicts. By the time he was dating Ena, he was atheistic and blamed God for taking his mother away from him I'd like to point out that him being leaning towards being atheist has literally nothing to do with like inner conflicts of this magnitude. Yeah. I think that's important to point out Like, you know what I mean? I think he has a lot of inner conflicts But I don't think him being an atheist is one of them. I think that's I'm like, okay, that's just the thing. Yeah He also said that Jim was halfway intelligent, but when you dealt with him, you always felt a little uneasy about the way he harbored something inside. He was pent up. He was a loner, and he had kind of an explosive personality Those are definitely his inner conflict. And that's what everyone said specifically explosive. Even after marriage and buying a house, his interpersonal skills never got much better than when he was a kid, and he was still struggling to control his explosive anger Small conflicts at work usually escalated really quickly with Jim taking way more offense at some you know, light things like teasing or perceived slightes Like I don't like teasing either. I hate teasing. But like you can't explode and go off the handle, you know. And sometimes people are just trying to like have a good time. L I don't think they were necessarily like bullying him, you know No. And the best thing to do in those situations is to tell someone like, hey, I don't really love I really love being teased like that. It kind of like sets something off and they'll be like, oh, shit, all right. Yeah That's a. That's how you get to know people, And also that's how you teach people how to treat you. Yeah, because that's what you have to take Exploding in anger at someone because they do something like that won't get you anywhere. They're not gonna learn anything except while you're an asshole. Yeah. I don't want to be And it's like if you just I hate teasing So there's been times where I've had to say to people, hey, like I actually don't love you.ike don't poke me. And they're like, oh, shit, sorry. Yeah then they know how to treat you. Yeah. teach them Teach him everybody. Tach you But even people who attempted friendly conversation or like small talk, found him to be very unpleasant and all described him as hostile hisis gun obsession got way worse as well. He covered his entire home in guns His coworker Jim Aslanes recalled, no matter where he was sitting or standing in the house, he could reach over and get a gun To mean that's too much. That's scary to me. My personal opinion, I think that's too much. My personal thing is like I don't have anything against guns. likeike if you are somebody who responsibly uses a gun Awesome. I'll hard to like ood for you, man. Like I really don't have a problem with it. If you are responsible with it, I fully support it I don't understand having that many. Yeah. but that's just something that I person opinion. I'm not saying you're a bad person for it. I just mean, I don't get it. And I also think, especially in this case, because later on he does go on to have two children, guns should not just be accessible in the home. You not be able to reach anywhere and get a gun if you have like kids in the house. it's just note. So dangerous. It's just not safe I've seen. And again, Jim could also usually be found sitting by the front door of his house, door open with a shotgun across his lap So like this is waiting Yeah And that's not responsible That's not being ir responsible gun owner It was precisely that type of bizarre threatening behavior that he was constantly exhibiting. that convinced his coworker Jim Eslanes that he did not want to get to know him outside of work. He said, it was little things like that just showed me there was something wrong with him which is very astute In nineteen seventy two, Eetna gave birth to the couple's first child a daughter who was followed by a second daughter two years later If anyone expected fatherhood to change or soften Jim Huberty, they were going to be sorely disappointed. Not only was he unwilling to change his increasingly confrontational and reckless behavior, because he saw no need to set the safety on any of his guns even with toddlers in the house. That's the kind of thing I'm saying is it's like he was a very irresponsible gy just an asshole. Yeah. Like he literally didn't care about his kids so but he also seemed mostly uninterested in parenting altogher, which like Why did you have kids? Exactly. Years later after the couple moved to San Diego, many of the neighbors would recall that, while Jim seemed to have a general dislike for most people He seemed to lohe children, which like, What's wrong? How do you not like kids? you don't have to be around them if you don't want to? Like I get it. Some kids are annoying for sure. Like I usually only like the ones related to me. Yeah, like Kids are adorable. comeome on I here's the thing If people make a choice not to have kids, more power to you. Yeah ully like, hell yeah. O, if you're making that choice, clearly, that's the right choice for you Because that's the choice. You're a responsible human you're saying, you know what? I don't want that. R? You don't need to have that or want that. Good for you, in fact. I bl you But when people make it their entire personality that they hate children, that's weird That's weird. it's like you don't need to have them Yeah. so it's not a requirement. So so just don't I do feel like it's okay. I will say, I think back then, it did feel like more of like a requirement. L for sure. You got married and then you had to have kids. Yeah. And I think a lot of people feel like weird societal pressure. Yeah. Like I'm sure Etna did, you know. Yeah, for sure. But still yeah, mayaybe not with Jim, babe. Maybe not like Jim Jim doesn't seem like He's he's great here. And again, like him less to like loathing children. I'm like reason it's weir Summer' here, and whether you're traveling, you' shuttling kids to camp, or spending long days by the pool, staying healthy and on a budget is always top of mind. That's where good AX can help GoodRX helps you save up to eighty percent on prescriptions for you and your family, evenven your pets too. Just check Good or X before every pharmacy run to find big savings on both brand name and generic medications GutareX is free and it's easy to use. Just search for your prescription on the website or the app Compare prices and get a free coupon to show your pharmacist Use GutRX to save at over seventy thousand pharmacies nationwide, including Walmart, Walgreens, CVS, Publics, Kroger, and many more. GutRX is not insurance, but it works whether you have insurance or not, and it could even beat your copay price Every single time that I pull up to CVS, before I even get in that drive through, I am pulling up my Gut orX app, checking to see if I can save anything on my prescriptions, and I always find a good coupon. So save time and money at the pharmacy this summer. Go to goodarex. com slash morbid. That's goodarex. com slash morbid Let's sayay you've always wanted to have a backyard oasis. Here's the thing, if you get smart with your money, you can do things like that With Epower, you can start making the most out of your money so you can go out and live a little. Isn't that why we work so hard to have some fun with our money So, use empower and get good at money, so you can be a little bad Join their twenty million customers today at empower. com Not an empower client paid or sponsored. Relax. Apple Pay is secure by design. When you pay with a physical debit or credit card, you're handing your card number over. With Apple Pay, your card number is never shared with the merchant. Apple Pay uses a device specific number and unique transaction code to help process your payment, instead of your actual card number. Plus, Apple Pay doesn't keep transaction information that can be tied back to you, or sell your data to third parties for marketing or advertising purposes Shop with confidence when you check out with Apple Pay. Terms apply A former neighbor of his told The New York Times, Everybody talks about that here. He was always yelling at kids pissed me off h Oh Uh, now When it came to the children in his neighborhood, Jim's frustration and anger was limited to yelling and calling them names. No no. normal adult behavior. within his limits. With his own children onn the other hand He was known to have been verbally, emotionally, and physically violent On one occasion, just a week or two before the shooting spree, this is horrendous. by the way. The Huberty's neighbor, Wanda, was surprised when Jim's older daughter showed up at her door with welts all over her face And when she asked what happened, the girl replied, herer daddy had slapped her around That's so sad. Fuck Jim Huberty. And to just like say that so openly casually like that's clearly didn he didn't give a shake because he's willing to send his daughter. Yeah, he doesn't care. And he knows she's gonna say what happened. she's saying it, like, isn't this just something that happened? That's what dads do, right? Yeah. That's horrific. so sad. In the winter of nineteen seventy one, their house caught fire while they were all out of the house. At that time, Jim was storing large containers of gunpowder in the basement And when the fire reached that area of the house, it just went up in a huge giant fireball. Like a bl sh. Yeah, like down to the foundation But they actually bounced back pretty quick and they bought a like a big three story home on the lot next to where their old house was And then on the now vacant lot, they built a six unit apartment building that would eventually provide them extra income. Imagine Jim, you wereready being your landlord? No, thank you. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure he didn't really handle anything. Probably not. According to one author, any success that they experienced during this time was Probably certainly Etna's hard work. For most, if not all of their marriage, she did literally everything. She managed the household, the children. She dealt with the world outside of the home because he couldn't. In the morning, he would she would get husband and children out of bed lay out their clothes. their lunches and get them to their various locations. She had three children. Yeah. And she was always going out of her way to limit Jim's interactions with the people around them terrified that any conversation or miscommunication would escalate into like physical violence or him exploding which gives In this sense, I feel so horrible because Edna obviously felt terrified Like this was her lot the other is just trying to limit his exposure to other people. Exactly. And I'm sure part of her was probably terrified to leave him. like she was probably horrified. I'm not condoning the fact that she didn't, because obviously he's beating her and their children, like that's awful But She's probably so scared he has a zillion guns. That's the thing. It's like And he's going to see that as like another slight. say he's not going to go after you and your baby. And again, it's easy for us to sit here from place where we have like loving, safe partners. Yeah and say, you know, like I would get out of that house. I don't know what that feels like. No. And and I can't sit here and claim that I do or feel like I would be the superwoman that knew what to do when our entire house is covered in insane amounts of guns to the point where it will explode if there's a fire explosive and hurting all of us and threatening all of that.ike I don't That's living hell. and cant fathom. It wasn't easy for a woman in the seventies to break out on her own with two children. No. You couldn't even get a fucking credit card. Exactly. So it's like that's horrific. It really is, like it's horrific I hate it. It's so sad But yeah, she was always just trying to keep him from getting in trouble, essentially. And behind closed doors though, he had no trouble taking out his anger on the entire family. She said and this is so sad. It is. She said, quote, Generally it was just one hit But there were other times that he would beat them all relentlessly He even threatened one of his daughters with a butcher knife one literally. they're kids Like young kids and no I mean I don't even care if your daughter' thirty five years old you threaten her with a butcher knife? What the fuck is wrong with you He's a horrific monster. He really is For just about anyone who knew or even those who had just met him, Jim Huberty's rage and extremely unpleasant demeanor were definitely the primary problems. But just beneath that were other more subtle signs of emotional distress that generally went overlooked. because again, That's the same thing we're saying. He's just a bad person. He's just a nasty, mean, violent, bad person who is severely mentally unwanted on top of all. And it's like he's probably one of the scariest types of people you can imagine. Oh yeah. this isn't a kind hearted person who has a mental health crisis This is a bad monster who is currently suffering really severely with mental health problems. It's like That is the worst combination I can think of. Absolutely. trruly, which makes me feel for his children and his wife even more because liiving with that is unthinkable becausecause you just never know what you're gonna get. And you just know it's all bad. It's gotta be dark. Yeah hell. Like there's no way of getting beneath this mental health crisis because underneath is a bad person. So there's no like light at the end of the tunnel with him. It's just really sad But as early as the mid nineteen seventies, Adna started encouraging her husband to seek mental health Like help, which like kudos seems like she was the only person that did. She was trying. And in one instance, Jim told her, God and Jesus Christ were consulting him about the government and President Carter. which is really, really sm. Which shows you right there. He's mentally un and well not well In another instance, Jim told a coworker, he' and this is really sad He'd killed one of his dogs for speaking to him And he went on to explain that the dog hadn't spoken him verbally, but had communicated through his eyes in a way that Jim understood and didn't appreciate I can't imagine my coworker looking at me and telling me about like That's chill you to your fyine scary. Now to Jim, everybody was always out to get him in one way or another. And in time, he became consumed by his desire to get back at anyone who slighted him. If he received bad customer service somewhere, he would make harassing phone calls or pick at the business If a neighbor did something he didn't like, he would set up an elaborate scheme that took weeks of planning to get revenge on them And while he knew he couldn't take out his anger on the neighborhood children physically only because he would get in trouble. That didn't stop him from enrolling his daughters in karate classes, not for their own betterment. No but so that he could direct them to assault the other children that lived around them. like if you take karate, you know is the exact opposite of what they're teaching. They do an entire oath in the beginning that says that they will not use it for that. right. So you're like And you're directing your children to be your little agents of chaos to go beat children. you don't go Beat children because you don't like them. L That's beyond. And then you're making your children pariah. Yeah. you're continuing this awful exact a toxic cycle Things in his life took a serious downturn in nineteen eighty two when after thirteen years of employment, he was laid off from his job at the factory Just about everyone who knew him has acknowledged that this is where his life started really spiraling out of control And he had done nothing to manage the stress I mean, yeah, this is for sure where he spiraled. He was already Nothing good was coming out of this guy. L that was was not he was not killing it No. Now rapidly running out of money and sensing her husband was on the verge of a breakdown, Etna put the couple's property on the market and gently approached Jim about what to do Jim was too consumed with paranoia to be much of a hel And instead, he spent most of his time focused on his belief that the factory closing was just evidence of a larger conspiracy to ruin him and he was determined to get even with everyone, telling one former coworker He was going to kill himself and quote, take everyone with him. Guys, you gotta call someone, yeall. Like he is literally spelling it out for people around him What is everyone doing? That's the thing. Yeah. ' it's like, He is like you just, he is spelling it out. It' yeah All yelling there to everyone Those paranoid delusions got even worse when a deal for both properties fell through, and Jim and Atna ended up selling their properties at a loss To Jim, this was just further evidence of the conspiracy so he sued his realtor Now when everything fell apart for them in Ohio, Jim decided it was evidence of his longstanding belief that the entire country was in fact on the verge of collapse Rather than relocate to any other city or state, he picked up his entire family in the spring of nineteen eighty three and moved them to Tijuana when they left Ohio. He really didn't bother to bring much of their furniture or personal belongingsead. He just filled the car with his massive gun collection and a stock, a huge stock of ammunition. Those poor children poor children. To be uprooted from your already insanely dark and chaotic life. And then packed up in a car with a bunch of gun and guns. Moved to Mexico. Yeah where like you don't know anybody. They don't speak the language. They don't the language language. And then your father is this terrifying man who like nobody wants to be around. So you're even more isolated. Yeah And it's getting worse and worse, his delusions, his paranoia. So there's no shortage of, you know irrational motives for moving the entire family to Mexico in his mind. Of course. Ultimately, though, they only lasted three months before moving back to the US. because remember, he's also violently racist. Yeah. And they settled in the San E Cidro neighborhood ofan San Diego Once they settled into their two bedroom apartment, it didn't take long for the old problems and bad habits to just crop right back up Several neighbors recalled hearing Jim yelling at Etetna, the girls on multiple occasions. sad. The one neighbor who lived next door told a reporter he'd never heard the couple so much as argue. I think he just didn't want to get It was like to. While their new neighbors initially tried to be friendly and welcoming They became decidedly less friendly when Jim made his dislike of minorities known to everyone with an earars shot Porter Carlos Amza said he was very anti immigrant. He hated immigrants, especially Mexican immigrants So that's why we're sitting. You're a terrible person. Yeah. And also Why move into immigrant communities if you hate immigrants? Wh why are you infiltrating their saf? They're infilrating their place. Like you can go, I mean, you up and moved your family to Tijana for long a racist piece of shit. So like that makes sense. Yeah. And then you moveved to San Cidro, or San San Cidro. That's a very well known Mexican community. like Mexican community. Yeah What are you doing? So go move somewhere where you'll you can spout your nastest to other angry white people. Yeah. Or like what do Or go fuck yourself? Or go fuck yourself You choose But like why are you infiltrating their community and telling shit about them? Right? Like with the fook Jim never felt settled in California, if he'd ever felt settled and her entire life Etna said, in his mind, everything in Ohio was done right, and he could not adjust to the way things were done in California So he was unemployed, surrounded by people he disliked because of his extreme racism, and the entire landscape was foreign to him And in the past, he probably wouldn't have had any trouble finding a job as a welder. But a recent car accident had left him shaky and that ruled out any work like that. And I'm sure led to even greater conspiracy. Exactly. Then one day, he saw a newspaper ad for a federally funded job training program. It offered grants to low income individuals interested in training to be a security guard So the course was several weeks long and Jim excelled at every aspect especially the target shooting. He did. was Yeah, he was placed in the expert category. Once he'd finished the training, he was granted a two year registration as a trained security guard in the state of California, and he set about out looking for work In comparison to the training as a a security guard Finding actual work was exponentially harder for him he was an ideal candidate But as soon as he sat down in front of potential employers thingsings would change quickly because he can't speak to people. Just a few days after completing the training course, he got an interview with Bernstein Security Services. Owner Rudy Bernstein recalled, He told me how well he handled himself and how he would only work for top security firms But he was put off by his arrogance, bad attitude, and obvious lies.. After he left the interview, Bernstein took measures to ensure that the candidate was not going to get the job. He wrote, no bold four inch letters on Jim's application and then traced over it again with a darker marker to make it clear. Really making surery. That took me out when I heard that Jim did manage to find work with another security firm nearby in Chulaav Vista Working the undesirable eight PM to two AM shift. That's pretty brutal. This guy with lack of sleep is probably not a great mix either. Well just buy himself out post. And when he wasn't working, sleeping or ranting, he was shopping, buying new guns, gun parts, military uniforms You know, so scary. Despite their very limited income, Jim spent money freely But whenever Eetna needed to spend money on essential items or something for their children, Jim would explode in anger On one occasion when Ena told her husband one of the girls needed braces. burst into the girl's bedroom, waving around an oozy. Oh my go, and shouted, Why spend money on the girl's teeth? She'll be dead anyway Like That's also just plainly telling your wife that you're gonna kill. I'm gonna to kill all of you. That's so fuc And this po scary. Th these poor fucking kids. Well think of like how old you are when you got your first brely. You're a young teenager And your dad is literally bursting into your room with an oozy shouting about how you're going be dead anyways. So why do you need braces? I so hope that these girls are doing okay now and like received the help they need because They Their childhood was some of the worst, I can imagine. I can't even. While things at home were deteriorating fast, things at work weren't going very well for Jim either. His credentials and training made him a good candidate for the job But his bosses at the security company were like, yeah, I don't know if this guy can actually do the job because He's wild. He also like might just shoot somebody because he wants to. He's edgy He constantly seemed paranoid and jumpy. his attitude was terrible. He was exploding at people. He was just being Jim Huberty. Yeah Not somebody that you want on your property with a gun. No On july tenth, nineteen eighty four, he was fired from the security job after his boss determined he was, quote too nervous for the work Although he reacted to his firing about as well as anyone would expect, losing his job also seemed to be like A little bit of a wake up call. Rim After his job loss, he started speaking a little more openly about his mental health and wondering out loud whether he should seek help from a professional which is what led him to place a call to the Mental Health Center on july seventeenth But when Jim didn't get the call back in a few hours, he became irrationally angry and stormed out of the apartment By that time, Aetna had become frightened for Jim's safety and the safety of others And she started frantically calling mental health centers in the area trying to locate the one Jim had called that day. She intended to tell the receptionist that contrary to what hed told them, he was in fact seriously suicidal Dangerous onn the side of E even and hoping that would be enough to get him an appointment immediately. Unfortunately, because the receptionist wrote his name down wrong When Etna did eventually land on the Wright mental health center, the person on the other end looked over the call log and told her they hadn't had any calls from someone named Huberty, which almost like Suberty. Did you see Suberty and say maybe they wrote it down wrong? Like come come on guys Now the next morning, july eighteenth, Jim and Etna were due traffic court, related to just like a minor infraction. According to the clerk on duty that day, he was Jim was pleasant and waited patiently until his name was called, never becoming agitated or angry. Interesting. In fact, Jim even successfully managed to win the sympathy of the clerk, who, feeling sorry that the Huberties had to wait so long, cancellled the fine altogether. Wow After leaving the Hort courourthouse, Jim and Etna took the kids to the zoo where they spent a few hours walking the paths, looking at the animals Adna Jim seemed uncharacteristically calm. That's so scary. Yeah. But every now and then he would make a comment that she said she found disturbing. At one point, they stopped to watch the animals. And I propose of nothing Jim just said, Well, Society had its chance and then walked away Oh my God That would horrify me Honestly I don't even know like what they would be able to do But you have to call the police if your husband ever fucking says that to you. Like that's I suppose society had its chance. Like I don't even know that's so scary. And the fact that he was weirdly calm That must have been really scary. And they're so sad Yeah that they couldn't even actually enjoy the fact that he was calm and they because they were probablyving what does this mean? Yeah The family arrived home in the early afternoon and Etna made lunch for the girls. and when she finished cleaning up the kitchen, she went into the bedroom to lay down for a little while A few minutes later, Jim entered the bedroom, wearing a full camouflage outfit and carrying a large bundle wrapped in a black and white checkered outfit. And he said, I want to kiss you goodbye When he stood up to leave the room, Eetna asked where he was going and he replied, I'm going hunting. I'm going hunting people You move forward. Okay. From the balcony of the apartment, one of their daughters watched as her father loaded this bundle into the car, then pulled out the parking lot, drove the two hundred or so yards down the street where he pulled into the parking lot of the post office just across from the McDonald's. This was only two hundred yards away from him. I could see it probably. The restaurant was very popular in the neighborhood and was a place parents frequently bought their children to play So that afternoon, there were about fifty people inside It was about four PM when John Arnold clocked in for his shift at McDonald's. He was standing at the register, but he didn't see Jim Huberty come through the door All he remembers was hearing his coworker Guillermo Flores yell, Hey, John, that guy's gonna shoot you. Oh my God. Arnold turned around and saw Huberty pointing a shotgun in his direction He said he was pointing that gun right at me. He pulled the trigger, but nothing happened Then he brought it down and started messing with it. When Jim lowered the gun, John relaxed a little thinking like, was this just a prank? L what is this? But it wasn't. The guy the gun had just jammed Huberready fiddled with the shotgun briefly before finally clearing the jam and firing it into the ceiling. The noise got everyone's attention, which is when Jim pulled out his nine millimeter semi automatic Oozie from the bundle he was carrying and fired at twenty two year old manager, Neva Kaine. hitting her several times before she dropped to the ground. employee Albert Leo said I saw him come in and tell everyone to get to the floor. Then he just started shooting at everyone The people who tried to get out to run out of the McDonald's, he started shooting at them Waving his gun around furiously, he shouted, I'm gonna kill you all He then referred to everyone in the restaurant as dirty swine, telling them he'd killed many in Vietnam and he was gonna to kill a thousand more. Jus He had not served in Vietnam? Yeah. He tried to enlist Bose deeemed unfit for service. I wonder why. But in that moment, none of that matters.. After killing Nivva Caine, Huberty turned and began firing through the windows at the people across the street at the donnut shop twelve year old Joshua Coleman and his friends David Flores and Omar Hernandez had gone to the shop to get ice cream that afternoon and were walking out just as he started shooting in their direction Flores was killed immediately walking out with his ice cream. twelve year old with his friends. Yeah Omar Hernandez was shot multiple times and ended up dying on the ground Joshua Coleman was hit in the chest, knocking him to the ground Coleman was panicked and terrified that if he moved, the shooter wouldn realize he was still alive and fire at him again. So he stayed completely still, struggling to breathe. He was shot in the chest He later said, I needed air and I couldn't get enough. I had to take short, quick breaths C Inside the McDonald's, Jim turned his gun on the families in the play area firing indiscriminately into the crowd as parents just grabbed their children and huddled under the stone tables Nightmare is not even the correct word. Keith Thomas later recalled, We got under the table and I got shot in both arms. He was a kid That afternoon, Keith had gone out to a late lunch with his best friend, Mateo Herrera and Mateo's father, Ronald with the Two boys squeezed beneath the table, Ronald, the father, shielded them both with his own body But in the end, it wasn't enough. Mateo was shot and killed And Keith was shot seven times Keith credits Ronalolds with saving his life that day. Seven times. And that's like his best friend's father saved him with his own. That's thing the heroes that come out of these stories. Oh, it like like shatters your heart. People that literally shield others with their own No should have to do this. No There should not be such thing as a human shield No The first call came into San Diego nine hundred and eleven a few minutes after the shooting started when someone dragged one of the victims, a young girl off the sidewalk and into the post office across the street. Officer Miguel Rosario said the call came in, if I can remember as some type of disturbance where a little girl had been shot I had no clue what I was about to enter into. G communication here is awful. fromom start to finish in the story. At that time, there were two McDonald's restaurants in Santa Cedro.. One on the west side and one on the east side Because there was some confusion around where the incident was taking place, Rosario was dispatched to the wrong location and didn't receive the correction until he was about a block away from the East side, McDonald's As a result, emergency services were delayed by anywhere between three and five minutes as the officer had to backtrack and make his way to the right location. Three and five minutes. It is deterer huge. Oh my God. Inside the restaurant, everything was chaos. The alarms, this is for some reason this detail. The alarms on the fryers and other heating elements were all going off because the food was getting burned. ' it's just madness. So now people are crying, screaming and moaning in pain and there's fryer alarms going off and like other heating element things just being like, R,,, crazy And then on top of that, Whatever wasn't being drowned out by the alarms was covered up over, Are you ready music blaring out of the portable stereo that Huberty had brought with him. No. Every now and then he would fiddle with the radio changing the station to find a song he liked And then he would start firing wildly across the restaurant again. Oh my God, I never got to that detail now I thought you were gonna to say the pop music like overly know heross his own and would change it to a change the story. He didn't like a song That just made me like physically ill like that is beyond evil An outside local reporter Carlos Amza happened to be coming out of the post office when the shooting started making him the first reporter on the scene. Oh my go He said later, beforefore I could even realize it, I heard the whistles of shots going by my head. I hit the ground so hard that I thought I'd been shot because I had blood on my face and hands. I'd actually hit my nose on the pavement. Oh my gosh. As Carlos scrambled for cover behind the cars, Miguel Rosarios finally arrived. pulling his patrol car into the parking lot of the post office. And remember, he was the one that was sent to the wrong location. Is it was just him. At that point, Rosario still hadn't been informed of exactly what was going on So he thought it might have been a robbery or other public disturbance He later said, walking to the post office is when I first realized something was very wrong People were hiding behind cars, they were looking towards the McDonald's So he looked in the direction of the restaurant just in time to see Jim Huberty raise the Uozie in his direction and fire. Oh my God. He was able to dive behind a truck to avoid being hit. The cover gave him just enough time to radio for backup and tell them, Hey, get here now. the hook over here to the correct McDonald. His call went out at four ten PM ten minutes into the assault And you have to think about ten literallys honestly set a fucking timer for ten minutes right now That is such a long time in this kind of situation. you hear ten minutes and you go ten minutes, like, oh, I'll be there in ten minutes. It's no big deal. Like that sounds like whatever, sit for ten minutes minutes. I set a timer at night for my mouth wasash for one minute and it's like any minute is so long. L it's crazy. I set a timer for two minutes every time the girls brush their teeth. And even I'm like, oh my God. are you supposed to be brushing this lo one? That's a long time. So ten minutes in this Ten minutes sitting there is a long time. ten minutes in this kind of absolute nightmare scenario. And this man has I don't even know how many guns you said Yeah and how much ammunition is's like He knows how to make his own ammunition. so it probably is had hundreds He was able to get off hundreds of rounds hundredundreds of rounds and A McDonald's where families went to play with their kids. and he knew about. I so wish that you know in a strange way because that we already know. I wish that he hadn't been killed and I wish that he was sitting in prison to this day. M too. Just roted tortured. Yeah From furniture to tableware, the best for outdoor living is at Parigold, the destination for luxury home. Elevate how you go Alfresco with quality pieces in every style from design's best brands. Shop our largest ever selection and enjoy free, fast, full service delivery on most items in store and online at perarigold. com You know what they say Ely Bird gets the ultimate vacation home Book early and save over one hundred and twenty dollars with Berba. because early gets you closer to the action. Whether it's waves lapping at the shore, or snoozing in a hammock that overlooks, well, whatever you want it to So you can all enjoy the payoff com summer with Verbo's early booking deals Rise and shine Average savings one hundred and forty one dollars, select homes only Ryan Reynolds here from Mit Mobile I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same premium wireless for fifteen dollars a month plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities, so do like I did and have one of your assistant's assistants switch you to MintMobile today I'm told it's super easy to do at mintmobile d. com slash switch. Upfront payment of forty five dollars for three month plan, equivalent to fifteen dollars per month required. intntro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available. taxes and fees extra. Feful terms at mintMobile d. com Later, after everyone had learned the full details of the massacre, several people did question why no one inside the restaurant, which I'm like guys Like this that makes me crazy People were questioning why no one in the restaurant had done anything to try to stop him. What are you gonna do? He has a million guns. And that's the thing because they're all like, well, any attempt would have been better than nothing You're gonna get killed. Exactly. And Albert Leos, somebody who was there, which's like, how will we listen to the people that were experiencing it? Right. Because we can all sit here on our ass in our comfy, safe home. like anything Why didn't you try to bomb rush him? Why that you do? You don't know what the fuck you would do. You don't know what your fight or flight is gonna do in that moment. No. You weren't in there watching kids get shot or parents trying to save their kids and like so many people don't realize that A lot of people's fighter flight response is free. Exactly, and it's not anyone's fault. No, it's what you're bodying. Iology. It's just the way it is But Albert Leo said there was just no way. When you have someone who's armed the way he was, it's not like in the movies where someone can jump on him. There's just no way. No. No like semi automatic and ye and automatic rifles. L Jim Huberty had come prepared that afternoon. He carried an oozy, semi automatic which Also, an automatic or a semi automatic, you're not getting a moment between these shots. No. Like he's able to just mote It's like callall of duty. like like something out of a horrible, horrible action flick. And isn't it what they do they use that in Wars? those in Wars? I have no idea. I don't know I'm not even gonna try that they use that for like massk cararnate. Any kind of like automatic weapon horrifying. Yeah like it just is for like You know But so he was carrying an oozy semi automatic, a nine millimeter handgun and a Remington pump action shotgun Whenever one gun ran out of bullets, he would simply pull another out and start firing again. And you also have to think he's an expert. like he's so Gun he can reload quick. He can fix jams because I'm sure so many people like would take this moment to say or back then like, oh, he took a minute to reload. Yeah. He probably probably seconds. Yeah. he's done this his whole life. It's the only thing he's been obsessed with And no again, no one knew how long they might have between breaks where he would stop to reload. So no one wanted to take the chance to go rush at him And start another shooting spree. you can get yourself killed It' also you're not getting yourself killed. and I'm sure these people are thinking this. He's not shooting one shot at a time. It's not just going to be you going down. You standing up and rushing at him could take out everyone around you. Right. And so they're probably thinking in that scenario likes is it worth me getting up and having him mow down a whole group of kids behind? That's the thing there'sids everywhere in this That's awful. It's an awful sitationt Imagine being in it. Now once crime scene technicians had processed the scene later They determined that Huberty had managed to fire, like I said, hundreds of rounds in all directions. And when he wasn't blindly firing, ranting, or listening to music He would walk through the restaurant shooting people, several of whom were already dead. ust shooting them more. And when the noise became too much, he would shout at everyone demanding that parents keep their children quiet because they were making him anxious What? Like How do you expect anybody to calm their child in this situation? What the fuck dude? Maria Riveria was one of those parents hiding under the tables trying to keep her children quiet She told them the bullets were just little pieces of ice flying out of the broken ice machine, but she didn't think that they believed her. No. She later said, he came to our table and kicked me and I had to pretend I was dead. Oh my God. He thought we were dead because there was a lot of blood around us In the end, Maria's arm was grazed by a bullet and one of her daughters was shot in the leg, but all three did survive And also in that case like that is such a fucking mom right there Yeah. in that situation to come up with something even remotely comforting instead of like this k is killing everybody around us It's the ice machine like yeah ps to that mom. That's being a mom. That's next level. Now after aboutat, are you ready forortty minutes of terror Truly is shocking. Almost an hour. It's shocking that anybody made it out of just alive. Yeah Some people decided to try to make a run for the emergency exit, hoping that they could reach the door before he spotted them cashier Wendy Flanagan recalled. The girl that was at the cash register with me, Maggie, she saw that I was not running and she went behind me and she was pushing me the whole way as I ran I imagined I was running through rain She said, I felt like I was running through rain. and I heard bing, bing, bing because I believe now he was shooting with the machine gun And he was shooting at us and the bullets were ricoeting all over And when Maggie and then Maggie got really heavy and she was keeping me from running. So she slipped from my arm And I ran down the stairs into a closet and she never came Like Wendy didn't think these are like young girls working these registers. Wendy managed to reach the emergency exit on her own, but when she hit the door, she discovered It had been locked by the management who feared the employees might steal food if they had an unmonitored exit. You gotta be fucking p. I hope some shit came out of this. You gotta be fucking getting. So thinking fast, Wendy turned and ran through the door that led to a small supply room at the bottom of short flight of stairs where several others were also hiding. Okay Outside the supply room, they could hear their coworker, Albert Leos get shot five or six times, including two serious wounds in his arm and leg Huberty only stopped shooting Leos when he ran out of ammunition and had to return to the counter where he'd left his supply In that moment, Leos se the opportunity to drag himself to the supply room door, and then he dragged himself down the flight of stairs where the other people were hiding. pite how seriously he was injured He knew if he made any noise, he was going to give away their position So he bit down on a rolled up rag and used shoelaces as tourniquets on his arms and legs. Wow Now having spent nearly an hour trarapped in the restaurant with this abbssolute maniac The remaining survivors couldn't understand why. After having shot through the windows and killing people outside on the street, the police hadn't shown up to stop him. L like where are they? This must have been Like is sitting there and having this happen for so long, you're like, where are they? Yeah? Like where are the people that are supposed to save us? Like I don't understand this Throughout the late nineteen seventies and early eighties, Americans had watched their local police departments become much more militarized as well and heavily armed, with military grade weapons suppupposedly to prevent or stop incidents like this.. And yet there they were trapped inside with Huberty, and there was no sign of law enforcement to be seen, at least as far as they knew. Right In reality though which this is the reality. there was a heavy presence outside police presence but their attempts to intervene kept getting hindered by several factors For one thing, the windows were covered with a tinted film, making it difficult for anyone outside to see in That visibility was further hampered by the fact that after Huberty fired through the windows The double paned glass didn't shatter It just cracked into like a spider web. pattern, making it almost impossible to see inside. Also challenging was their physical location Although it surely wasn't planned that way, the McDonalds was all glass on three sides and Huberty could see through all of them. Right So anytime one of the officers tried to get close to the building, he would see them and unleash a torrent of semi automatic gunfire at them This not only put the responding officers at risk, but everyone else who was still pinned down outside the restaurant when the shooting started. Yeah Eventually, the SDPD called in fire trucks to position around the perimeter to block the pedestrians This allowed them to remove the wounded from the scene But the trucks like outside the scene, the trucks took heavy damage because he was just firing into them. Yeah. And at least one fireman was shot in the process Now after an hour, the San Diego pololice SWAT team had arrived at the scene, and I was like an hour hour You brought the to our team and an hour. TheWA team should be called should have been called immediately. They took up their positions with sniper Chuck Foster atop the room of the post office across the restaurant, the roof, excuse me of the post office He later said I got up on top of the room along with my spotter, Barry Bennett at about five o two PM I was like, um ' this' all startar around to one PM I said once I got up onto the post office roof, I could look down upon the McDonald's. I could see a few bodies lying inside the restaurant. I could see a few times when the shooter was firing out towards the street, towards the fire trucks The shooter within the McDonald's had a lot of advantages where he was at. Yeah As soon as he was in position on the roof Foster had the same problems that the officer on the ground had. The windows were both tinted, heavily cracked. He just couldn't see anything. Under those conditions, there was a high likelihood that if he took a shot Foster could have missed or hit one of the people inside Also, the officers outside the restaurant knew very little about what was actually happening inside the restaurant And they thought that if there was more than one shooter, which they thought there was considering how many, shots were being fired. They said taking one out might prompt the other one to kill everyone else insideide.. because they also didn't know if this was like a hostage situation and they were like, If we kill one, that might negate any hope that we have of getting anyone else out. Right. This is an impossible situation. It is. Now after about fifteen more minutes of holding in position Foster finally saw Huberty walk to the front of the restaurant and hop up on the counter From his position, it looked like Jim was reloading his guns, but Foster could only see him from the waist down and didn't have a clear shot He later said it was impossible to see inside the McDonald's through those windows. I didn't get a chance to see him at all until just before shooting him. W. The only reason I could see inside was because his gunshots shattered a double door of safety glass Chuck saw Huberty get off the counter and take a few steps towards the front doors, which had been blown out entirely. Worried that he might not get another chance, he drew in a deep breath As soon as Jim appeared through the broken glass of the front door, he fired a single shot that ripped right through Huberty's heart, killing him instantly. Wow. fiveive seventeen PM after a full seventy seven minutes of carnage and complete terror. The massacre inside the Santeedro McDonald's had finally come to an end. seventy seven minutes. seventy seven minutes minute That has to be one of the longest shing. I can't imagine this. In that time, Jim Huberty had murdered twenty one people, many of them children and injured nearly two dozen others and those who managed to survive this whole thing having escaped with their lives would suffer from profound post traumatic stress disorder. Absolutely. Deades. Probably for the rest of their lives. Oh, I can't even imagine. also There are children suffering TSD from this who are going to have to grow up with this. Truly, That's why I like this time of year when I think about like fireworks and that kind of thing and just obviously like it's a thing that happens, but I just feel for people who are triggered by that because that has got to send you into such a catastrophic state. That sound. Yeah. Yeah. L that's I can't imagine surviving this and then hearing and hearing fireworks. especially when like I think it's so annoying and I don't care how I come on I feel exly. I know exactly what you're gonna say and I feel the same. the fourth of July, cut the shit. All done. cut the shit. because h people start doing them on random weeknights at like eleven PM. You're an asshole. You're an asshole and that's just how I feel.cent literally care. I'm like I just think you're an asshle to do that. Like truly. and especially when people start it weeks earlier or they do it for weeks after the fourth of July a dedated. There's a designated day. Yeah. And you do I realize the world is not like fully, you know, a safe space for everyone and can't cater to everyone's, you know triggers or whatever the hell anybody wants to say There are certain things we can do that are just really easy to do Yeah. and it's like do your fireworks on the fourth of July. Come on. I. You just don't need to do them Think about this this year, like just think really think about. Yeah, just think about this and thinking about somebody who lived through this. and then two weeks after fourourth of July, someone decides to out of fucking nowhere in the middle of the night shoot off fireworks a couple of houses down. Not only And what that would do to someone? Because also you have to think of how many at this point in life and where we are have lived through this So it's way more many people have worked through this. and like you really do need to take that into consideration consideration. Yeah, whichich I feel like a's it's worth saying. I feel like a lot of our listeners are just, I know. I'm sure we pissed off a couple people. I'm sure we got a couple of people that are pissed off really worth justing it's just the way it is. But I think most of our listeners right now, I think you guys listening are the kind of people that are cons it and think of those things and also don't do that stuff I'm sure, you know, you're always going to get people, but just If you are one of those people that loves to shoot off fireworks a few weeks after the fourth of July, just think about this. Yeah. takeake a second guess. If you decide to do it anyway that's that's on you. But like think of if you decide to do it anyway, that kind of sucks. And like I feel like we're not as close as I thought we were. Let's be friends and just all agree not to do that Yeah. No Once he already was dead The survivors came running out of the building in all directions, not towards police or any other members of law enforcement, just away from the fucking building as fast as they could It was only after they'd managed to wrangle the survivors and get the wounded to the hospital the SDBD finally started to understand the scope of what happened here. because I remember They still don't know what the fuck was going on. They' like, is there still a hostage? Miguel Rosario recalled, noobody knew that this guy was in there by himself and just arbitrarily shooting people. 'Ccauseuse why would your mind even think that? Well and especially at this time Exactly. it wasn't Outside the restaurant, all they knew was that someone was shooting inside. so they naturally thought it was a robbery or a hostage situation that was really the most shocking element of the story although they become obviously tragically common Yeah which is horrific shame on all of us, Fan In nineteen eighty four, mass shootings were exceedingly rare So much so, in fact, that law enforcement didn't recognize it when it happened in Sane Cidro. Jim Huberty hadn't gone to McDonald's to rob anyone or make some kind of political statement even by taking hostages. He'd gone there for the sole purpose of killing as many people as humanly possible before being taken out by the police. And he did exactly that. You sure did. Police officers and crime scene technicians worked through the night to process the scene and identify the bodies According to the coroner, thirteen of the victims died immediately upon being shot. while the rest likely died within a few minutes of being struck down Because so many of the victims were children and didn't have identification on them. Staff members from the coroner's office were forced to use photographs of the victims from the shoulders up to show the mass of people who'd assembled outside the office looking for their loved ones. By the following day, they'd managed to identify all of the victims I'm going to read them out Elsa, Herinda Borboa Fiero is nineteen. Neva Denise Kane was twenty two. Michelle Denne Karncross was eighteen Maria Elena Colmonero Silva was nineteen Gloria Lopez Gonzaalz twenty two, Blyth Reagan Herrera thirty one Mateo Herrera, eleven Pauleen Aquino Lopez, twenty one Margarita Padillia, eighteen Claudia Perez nine, nine Eight of Alaska's Victoria was sixty nine Jose Rubin Lzano Perez was nineteen. Carlos Reyes was eight months. Oh my God Jackie Lnn Wright Reyz was eighteen Vor Maximilian Rivera was twenty five O as Delzi Vuelvas Vargas was thirty one. Hugo Louis Velasquez, excuse me, was forty five Lawurerence Herman Vers Luse was sixty two. David Flores deelgado was eleven. Almar Alonso Hernandez was eleven And Miguel Victoria Uoa was seventy four years old Such like a vast range of ages there. Yeah like people eight months to seventy four. Eight months like literally just starting your fucking. time on this earth And' like sixty nine and seventy four. and you make it that long in your life in this weatherfucker is the one that ends your life. Yeah Like that's just so cruel. And to be looking at people crying and begging for their lives and just indiscriminately shoot them, seeing parents trying to shield their crying children them anyways. You're shooting bab you guys nothing. You're shooting eleven twelve year olds. you're shooting parents. Jim Huberty had Nothing inside of it. It was an empty vessel. likeike truly an empty vessel Like he was just nothing would have made him stop They really wouldn't When the news broke, it shocked everyone from one end of the country to the other Although was it has unfortunately been surpassed in a number by o since At the time, the Santeidra massacre was the worst mass shooting in American history. And most people found it impossible to understand how such a thing could happen, which I wish we could say now That's the same thing that happens now that everyone can't imagine this happening. However, those who knew Jim Huberty weren't nearly as surprised. A former neighbor told a reporter he came across to me as cold. He looked like your average guy except for his facial expressions. I never saw a smile on him Now another person who wasn't entirely surprised by the shooting was Jim's wife, Etna I wonder if they like heard it from their apartment. That's what I wonder. They had to have Yeah. What While being very well aware of Jim's long struggle with his poor mental health, his inability to manage his rage and the full extent of his decomposition in the day before the accident Etna would go on to unsuccessfully sue the McDonald's cororporation a few years later. You gotta be fucking kidding me alleging that know Her deceased husband had been consuming copious amounts of McDonald's chicken nuggets in the days, weeks and months leading up to the shooting Flame This atrocity on chicken nuggets on over consonsumption of chicken nuggets When you know it' diabolical and especially you know who that man was. You know right well was. alwaysways in that way copious amounts of chicken nuggets are not. Yeah. And that's all that's all we've got to say. We've already given you like how we feel about like Edna not leaving or whatever. Like we've said. We've sympathized. We've sympathized. And I will continue to sympathize and empathize with her. Not on this. On this? No. No, Babe, I'm not empathizing with you. You're not blaming it on chicken nuggets You're you're gonna have to excuse me on this one. I'm not empathizing with the chicken nuggets. I can't imagine being a surviving victim or the the victim of the family member of a victim and hearing that this woman blamed it on chicken nuggets. saying that chicken nuggets made him do this? No. You have to be Fucking kidding me. She said that it contributed to his disordered mind. It didn't. He was already there He had already said a million times to a million different people that he was gonna kill a lot. He had been that way from childhood And that is no fault of hers Blame it on chicken nugget. That's why Because that really trivializes it. It really does. And it makes it not his fault suddenly. Y And that's wild to do. It absolutely is. Now while most people wondered what had caused him to go on such a shocking rampage, the public was equally frustrated with local law enforcement, and everyone wanted to know why and how he was able to continue killing people for well over an hour before police intervened That was a long time. seventy seven minutes. And for them to only get swapped there like an hour late, that's That I don't get. I don't. I never understand that. too throw a sniper on a roof an hour later? No. what are you doing Like what are you doing? He could have been stopped earlier. In truth, it seems there were several important factors that obviously It definitely hindered them from getting to him sooner But the initial error in dispatching in the presence of a single officer to a to the heavy tinting on the on the glass, like to the spidering on the glass, like all these things contributed to this allowing being allowed to go on for far too long But still, the event did go on to influence police procedure with regards to incidents of mass shootings and other acts of terrorism changing everything from the language used in communication between agencies because no one labeled this a mass shooting right