McDonald’s bloodbath dad mentioned he was going to ‘hunt people’ and would not be again

It was 40 years ago today that a horrifying attack at a McDonald’s restaurant became one of the deadliest massacres in US history.

Families had been enjoying their meals when a lone gunman opened fire killing 21 people in the small neighbourhood of San Ysidro in San Diego, California. It was James Huberty, 41 who unleashed the terrifying spree at the fast food chain on the US-Mexico border after telling his family he was going to “hunt for humans.”

The married dad-of-two gunned down families who pleaded for their lives, employees who desperately hid, and even a defenceless baby. 19 others were left injured in the bloodshed.

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It marked the deadliest massacre carried out by a lone person in the US at the time but four decades on, the incident is largely forgotten, overshadowed by worryingly more regular mass shootings across the world.

Huberty was a welder from Ohio who suffered from permanent walking difficulties after contracting polio as a child.

When a motorcycle accident led to an uncontrollable twitch in his arm, he was forced to quit his job and moved to Tijuana, Mexico with his family, before they settled in San Ysidro.

Huberty found work as a security guard but was dismissed just weeks before the shooting. The former undertaker, who also had an embalmer’s licence, reportedly had a history of domestic violence and was infatuated with guns.

A former co-worker later told the press: “He had a lot of guns in the house, and he always said that he wanted to kill a lot of people. We believed him. It was just a question of when.”

That fateful day came on July 18, 1984 after Huberty had taken his wife and daughters to the San Diego Zoo followed by lunch at a different McDonald’s restaurant.

When they got home, Huberty left, reportedly informing his wife he was going “hunting for humans” and telling his daughters he wouldn’t be back.

With guns strapped to his body, he burst into the McDonald’s just 200 yards from his apartment and blasted a hail of bullets “shooting everything in sight,” police said at the time.

It would be 77 minutes until a sniper would put an end to the horrific bloodshed by shooting Huberty dead.

In that time the mass killer took aim at dozens of victims, ranging from just eight months to 74 years old.

Among them were three 11-year-old boys who’d ridden their bikes to the fast food joint to get milkshakes. Only one of them survived after being shot by Huberty, who his neighbours said: “didn’t like kids.”

As well as shooting at customers, he fatally shot employees working behind the counter and in the kitchen.

At one point, he discovered five members of staff hiding from him in a storage area and shot them too.

Two young workers reportedly held hands as they attempted to flee, but only one made it out alive.

As emergency services arrived at the scene, Huberty continued to shoot, with police and firefighters struggling to dodge his bullets.

The atrocious attack finally came to an end when Huberty was shot and killed by a SWAT sniper.

Most of the victims were Mexican or Mexican American and police were asked if they thought the massacre was racially motivated.

But Police Chief Bill Kolender said no, adding: “Huberty just didn’t like anybody.”

However, locals claimed he had a particular hatred for people of Mexican descent.

Huberty’s eldest daughter, Zelia, was just 12 at the time of the shooting. In 2015 she opened up about the incident for the first time, revealing she’d witnessed it all.

She told Vocativ: “I had a perfect view of it. I saw the car there. I saw everything. I saw people I knew, who I went to school with. I wasn’t thinking anything that time, except: ‘Better them than me.'”

She added: “I know that’s a horrible thing to say, but as a 12-year-old, that’s the sort of thing you think. But if I could go back in time I probably would have killed my father before any of this would have occurred.”

After the massacre, the McDonald’s was demolished and later rebuilt further down the street.

A memorial has since been placed at the site with all of the victims’ names etched on it.

The memorial, which features 21 pillars of different heights to mark the different ages, is covered with flowers on each anniversary of the dark day.

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