[3] The perpetrator, 41-year-old James Huberty, fatally shot 22 people, including an unborn baby, and wounded 19 others before being killed by a police sniper approximately 77 minutes after he had first opened fire.

According to his wife, Huberty sat quietly beside the telephone for several hours, awaiting the return call, before abruptly walking out of the family home and riding to an unknown destination on his motorcycle.

"[15][n 3] Holding a gun across his shoulder and carrying a box of ammunition and a bundle wrapped in a checkered blanket,[17] Huberty glanced toward his elder daughter, Zelia, as he walked toward the front door of the family home and said "Goodbye.

According to eyewitnesses, he drove first toward a Big Bear supermarket and then toward a post office,[18] before entering the parking lot of a McDonald's restaurant approximately 200 yards (180 m) from his Averil Road apartment.

[19][20] At approximately 3:56 p.m. on July 18, Huberty drove his black Mercury Marquis sedan into the parking lot of the McDonald's restaurant on San Ysidro Boulevard.

In his possession were a 9mm Browning HP semi-automatic pistol, a 9mm Uzi carbine, a Winchester 1200 12-gauge pump-action shotgun, and a box and a cloth bag filled with hundreds of rounds of ammunition for each weapon.

[5] Immediately after shooting Caine, Huberty fired his shotgun at Arnold, wounding the teenager in the chest and arm, before shouting a comment to the effect of, "Everybody on the ground.

[29] Beside his mother's body, eight-month-old Carlos Reyes sat up and wailed, whereupon Huberty shouted at the baby, then killed him with a single pistol shot to the center of the back.

[30] Huberty then shot and killed a 62-year-old trucker named Laurence Versluis, before targeting a family seated near the play area of the restaurant who had tried to shield their son and his friend beneath the tables with their bodies.

Huberty fired his shotgun and Uzi at the couple and their four-month-old daughter, Karlita,[5] striking Maricela in the face, arms and chest, blinding her in one eye and permanently rendering one hand unusable.

[63] The entire incident had lasted for 77 minutes, during which time Huberty fired a minimum of 257 rounds[53][1] of ammunition, killing 20 people and wounding as many others, one of whom was pronounced brain dead upon arrival at hospital and died the following day.

[69] Huberty found his mother's abandonment emotionally devastating; his father would later recollect finding his son slumped against the family chicken coop, sobbing.

[74][n 7] Due to his limp, his family's extreme religious beliefs, and his reluctance to socialize with his peers,[69] Huberty was frequently targeted by bullies at Waynedale High School.

[81] To his neighbors and co-workers, Huberty was perceived as a sullen, ill-tempered and somewhat paranoid individual, obsessed with firearms and who harbored a mental tally of every setback, insult, or general source of frustration—real or perceived—against himself or his family within his mind.

[21] Occasionally, Huberty would retaliate in response to any real or perceived injustice in an effort to settle what he termed "my debts", and conflicts with his neighbors would once lead to his detainment on charges of disorderly conduct.

"[81] A conspiracy theorist and self-proclaimed survivalist, Huberty believed an escalation of the Cold War was inevitable and that president Jimmy Carter and, later, Ronald Reagan and the United States government were conspiring against him.

[84] Convinced of an imminent increase in Soviet aggression, Huberty believed that a breakdown of society was fast approaching, perhaps through economic collapse or nuclear war.

He committed himself to prepare to survive this perceived collapse and provisioned his house with ample reserve supplies of non-perishable food and numerous guns—some purchased from co-workers[80]—that he intended to use to defend his home during what he believed was the coming apocalypse.

[80] In November 1982, Huberty was laid off from his welding job at Babcock & Wilcox, causing him to become despondent over his dire financial situation and general inability to provide for his family.

[87][n 8] One co-worker would later recollect that, upon being notified of the impending closure of this engineering firm, Huberty had made a comment indicating that if he was unable to provide for his family, he intended to commit suicide and "take everyone with him.

Having discussed his son's childhood and the family's religious background, Earl Huberty pointed to a painting of a lost sheep by the Jordan River before beginning to weep, informing reporters: "Yesterday was the worst day of my life.

[96] In the weeks following the massacre, Huberty's wife and daughters received numerous death threats, forcing them to temporarily reside with a family friend.

[97] Etna Huberty and her daughters initially relocated from San Ysidro to Chula Vista, where Zelia and Cassandra enrolled in school under assumed names.

[100] The local parish, Mount Carmel Church, was forced to hold back-to-back funeral masses in order that each of the dead could be buried in a timely manner.

[101] Several police officers who responded to the scene of the massacre suffered symptoms including sleep withdrawal, loss of memory and guilt in the months following the incident.

A study commissioned by the National Institute of Mental Health and conducted by the chief psychologist of the San Diego Police Department in 1985 concluded several officers suffered post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of the incident.

[103] The police department increased training for special units and purchased more powerful firearms in order to better equip law enforcement to respond to scenarios of this magnitude.

[58] According to one officer, who confessed to having felt "inadequate" because he had been equipped with a .38-caliber revolver on the day of the massacre: "The time had come where you had to have a full-time, committed and dedicated, highly trained, well-equipped team [...] able to respond rapidly, anywhere in the city.

The results of this internal inquiry found that although the arrival of SWAT team members was delayed by rush-hour traffic, the police acted appropriately in their method of response.

[9] Kolendar stated any suggestion police should have stormed the restaurant was "ludicrous", adding that officers had been unable to obtain a clear view of the gunman because windows had been "spider-webbed" by bullet holes, making visibility in direct sunlight difficult.