James Oliver Huberty(1942-1984)

James Oliver Huberty will forever be remembered for one of the most shocking acts of violence in American history. Huberty, 41, was a welder in Ohio who had lost his job when the plant where he worked closed down. His volatile temper kept him from getting another job so he moved himself and his wife and kids to California where he got a job as a security guard. On July 18th, 1984 he tried to get help for his anger and called a mental health center for an appointment. When the clinic didn't call him back he began an hour-long violent encounter with his wife that ended with Huberty proclaiming "I'm going to hunt humans". He then walked a quarter of a mile from his house to the busy McDonald's restaurant where shortly before 4pm he opened fire with three semi-automatic weapons killing 21 people and injuring 19 more, the youngest six months and the oldest 74. An off-duty police officer driving by moments after the shooting noticed three boys lying in the grass, two dead and one pretending to be dead so that Huberty would not come out and kill him. Pinned inside the restaurant by police, Huberty was ordered to surrender his weapons and step outside but did nothing and was then shot in the head by a sniper stationed on the roof across the street. On September 26th, the city demolished the McDonald's promising never again to build any kind of restaurant in that spot again. Instead, it became the campus of a local college and out front is a memorial to Huberty's victims that consists of 21 hexagonal granite pillars ranging in height from one to six feet which represent each of the people killed that day plus a plaque that bears their names.