The television cameras showed up. The grainy black-and-white images on the film shot that day show puffs of white smoke, with the crack of the rifle heard a few seconds later. Bodies lay out in the open on the concourse.9 This was the first time Americans witnessed the carnage from a mass shooting as it was dumped into their living rooms. This was the first time children watched real-time violence. Parents were surely caught off guard as cartoons were interrupted for bodies lying in the sweltering heat of Texas, the rifle cracks of death erupting from small speakers on televisions all over the country. One reporter interviewed a Vietnam veteran who was breathing hard and covered in sweat. He had just run out into the open and carried a person to safety. The second person he went out for was dead.10
This was carried by network cameras and beamed to antennas poking into suburban American skies. People were not familiar with wanton carnage. Vietnam was about the Communists who had to be stopped. Those bodies meant something in the war against Communist aggression. This meant nothing. These people were not dying halfway around the world but right here on a safe college campus in Texas. And they were dying as dad came in from cutting the lawn and mom made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. They were dying between episodes of the Dick Van Dyke Show and Leave It to Beaver or The Beverly Hillbillies. Television had gone from entertainment to a portal into a strange dark world where wanton death was displayed in the safety of the home. You can only imagine moms reaching for the plug on televisions all over America, or sitting down to watch in horror, in fear, in amazement.
It is the ultimate voyeurism to watch other humans die while you sit in the safety of your own home, through a device that allows us to be there in mind but not in body. Television is the peeping Tom who not only looks at naked women but, worse, looks at dying humans shot for no reason at all. And the new twist, the joker in the deck, is that the show has no end time. Gilligan's Island, Green Acres, and Dragnet all end after thirty minutes, but this new show could go on for hours because it is live television. All bets are off, and no one knows how it will end. Will the good guys get the bad guy or will the bad guy just keep killing people?…Stay tuned.
The police returned fire but were pinned down by Whitman's precision shooting. Whitman picked off a boy on a bike and then an Associated Press photographer who was running. He shot a pregnant woman, then a student crossing the campus. No one was safe. The police hired a plane with a sharpshooter to try and get a shot but Whitman drove the plane off with a burst of rifle fire. The police had no SWAT Team to call in. They had no plan for how to take out a man with high-powered rifles and a sniper's precision. It would come down to beat cop Ramiro Martinez. Martinez was grilling in his backyard when he heard about the shooting. He left his steak on the grill, put on his uniform, and drove to the campus. He crawled to the clock tower's main entrance and handed a rifle to Allen Crum, an employee of the university bookstore. Together they made their way to the observation tower, followed by George McCoy, who had a shotgun loaded with deer slugs.
Martinez turned the corner on the observation tower and saw Whitman. He fired his revolver and Whitman retuned fire. Ramiro then emptied his revolver as McCoy burst onto the platform and let loose with his shotgun. Martinez's bullets smashed into Whitman's rifle and one hit him in the neck. McCoy put a deer slug between the sniper's eyes, and Charles Whitman fell back dead.11
Thirteen people were dead and thirty wounded. Whitman was quickly dubbed the “Texas Tower Sniper.” America had watched from their living rooms as a man indiscriminately killed other humans. Mass shootings from this point on would be media events, shown to people who had never seen a gun or a dead body before. This became part of the horror beamed out across America and would begin the modern era of mass shootings, where television presented the faces of the killer and the victims to the world.
Charles Whitman would be found to have had a brain tumor after his autopsy. No one could say if this was the cause of his murderous clock tower rampage, however.12 The Texas Clock Tower Shooting was the first intersection of mass communication with a mass shooter, and it would be the jumping-off point for televised carnage. Domestic abuse, a floundering young man looking for his place in the world, a military-trained killer, a familiarity with weapons, a hatred of his abusive father…this is the stew that would be served up again and again in the new televised culture of violence and mass murder. Shooters would relish the moment when they became famous, as television itself sometimes became another reason to kill.
Heat becomes the enemy. We have one bottle of water and nowhere to get more. The heat is becoming more and more oppressive. There is no breeze, and the stress combined with the heat makes us all lose water quickly. Callie is the first to succumb. We are still by the cement column that has become a base camp of sorts. We are flanked on one side by the television trucks and on the other by a low cement wall. It is probably as safe as we can get at the moment. But Callie is unusually white. She does not look well, and she is not talking.
One time when we were on vacation in the Boundary Waters of Minnesota my wife and Callie wanted to go hiking. There were blueberries and trails and possible bear sightings out in the forest that called to the city folks from Chicago. On vacations I always bring big fat biographies to read. Vacations in my family growing up were always read-a-thons at the beaches of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. My parents would plop down their chairs and read the entire time, so I took on their habits, and when I had my own family vacations I always looked forward to having long stretches of time for losing myself in Hemingway, Jefferson, Mark Twain, Jack London, or Custer, anyone who I could sink into in a one-week vacation.
That morning I had made my coffee and positioned my book and was about to sit down when I was confronted by a little girl in a bathing suit, wearing Nemo flip-flops and holding a blueberry bucket. Her hands were on her hips, while Kitty and I argued about going on a hike.
“I just want to read,” I declared, feeling like I was already losing vacation time.
“I thought we said we were going hiking this morning.”
Clay had not even gotten out of bed, so he wasn't going. I wanted that freedom now. I wanted to read. I faced Kitty and Callie and stood my ground.
“I'm going to read.”
Callie took a step forward, her blue eyes narrowing, her bucket out to her side. “Dad! We are going on a hike!”
And then with perfect aplomb she stuck her tongue out and made that sound that is every kid's defense. I stared at the my seven-year-old daughter and realized I was beat.
“Okay. We are going on a hike,” I muttered, grabbing the baby monitor so we could hear when Clay woke up.
And now she is sixteen and still has the same funny sense of humor and the ability to say what is exactly on her mind. Bird of Joy is a name a teacher gave Callie in elementary school and it stuck. I can't remember ever having a cross word with her and sometimes I wonder if I should be more strict because it doesn't feel like parenting, just a great long ride of pleasure. But now we are down behind the cement pole and Callie, who has been stoic through all of this, is starting to breathe heavily.
“Here, let me cool you down,” I say, grabbing the one water bottle the newspeople had given us. I begin sprinkling water on her forehead.
“I'm alright,” she says, but she is not.
Her breathing is increasing and she is pale. I am wondering about shock when Kitty murmurs that Callie is hyperventilating. Stress or intense anxiety can bring on hyperventilation. Being shot at would probably qualify, and the stress has been intensified by being in an “active situation,” where the shooter is thought to still be out there. Under the circumstances, and the prolonged adrenal ride, it is no wonder that Callie's body has started to break down. I myself have been riding for hours on some weird high that I know is brought on by coursing adrenaline. I am ready for fight or flight, and I have really decided that if I hear shots again then I am going to run toward them and not away from them. It's something about having bee
n scared to death once and being really pissed about it.
But right now Callie is breathing like she is running a marathon, and she's perspiring. I am putting water on her frantically. She needs to be cooled down and, more than that, she needs to get to safety. Her body needs to get off the fight-or-flight merry-go-round. I stand up and look around and see the Fox News truck. I had already asked the talking head if my daughter could take refuge there and his answer had been an empathetic and curt no. So much for the press. I see the very nice woman who had earlier taken a picture of my son but said she would not use it. I look down and Callie is worse. She has her eyes closed and she is very white. I look for EMTs or an ambulance—anything to get her out of here, because being in this situation is not working for anyone anymore and we really have to get the hell out of here. I walk up to the photographer.
“My daughter is hyperventilating. Do you think she can sit in your car?”
The woman turns, dreadlocks swinging, her cameras slung around her neck. “Absolutely. Where is she?”
“Let me get her,” I say, running to my daughter. “Callie…this woman is going to let you stay in her car.”
She holds up her hand. “I'm fine…I'm fine.”
But she is wobbly and we lead her over to the sedan parked in the street, the press credentials in the window. I put her into the air-conditioned car and the woman gestures to Kitty and Careen.
“It's okay if your wife and other daughter want to stay in there, too.”
Compassion in hell. “Yes. Thank you.”
They get in the air-conditioned car and I slam the door. It is a sturdy car with tinted windows. They are out of the firing line. They are out of the heat. For now they are safe. I feel much better and go back to Clay by the cement column. I look down at him and see the same road grime that is smudged over all of us. We are all hot and sweaty and dirty and, worse, we are imprisoned in an airport with no escape and a shooter on the loose. I look at Clay.
“You want to get in there, get in the car?”
He shakes his head. “No.”
“You sure?”
“I said no.”
I nod and I slide down against the pole and sit in the puddle of water we were using to cool Callie down. It feels good in the heat and I lean my head back and for a moment nod off. I open my eyes and stare at the brightly lit television trucks.
“What a fucking day,” I mutter.
Clay holds his hands together over his knees. He looks at me sideways from his number-four haircut that is just a shade above a marine cut. It is the current style. He squints, holding his hands up in front of him.
“Did stuff like this happen when you were a kid?”
I shake my head, thinking back on my childhood in the seventies and eighties.
“No. It didn't. The world was different then.”
But I am wrong. It did. I just didn't know about it.
When I was in junior high I used to ride with a friend to McDonald's on our bikes and buy two Big Macs. We would eat them sitting outside by our ten speeds and then turn around and bike the two miles back home. A red-faced Ronald McDonald clown had marketed the McDonald's corporation to us, and a hundred different commercials had positioned McDonald's as the all-American fast food restaurant. I grew up in a family that always had McDonald's fries decomposing under the car seat—although they did not actually decompose and my father would murmur about the preservatives used to keep that fry looking good.
Everyone loved McDonald's, and if you were going to launch an assault against the very culture of America then McDonald's was a ripe target.
James Huberty didn't care for McDonald's. He was born in Canton, Ohio, on October 11, 1942, and he had contracted polio when he was three years old.1 He didn't end up paralyzed like many victims but he walked with a strange gait for the rest of his life. His father bought a farm in the Ohio Amish country, taking young James and his sister to the country. His mother had no interest in farming, and she abandoned the family and moved out west to become a missionary. After a brief stint studying sociology at Malone College in Canton, Huberty ended up studying embalming at the Pittsburgh Institute of Mortuary Science.2 In 1965 he married Etna Markland and later received his embalming license. He worked for two years at a funeral home before leaving to become a welder.
The couple had two daughters, Zelia and Cassandra, but life wasn't good for the family. James Huberty had a predilection to violence and Etna liked to manipulate his paranoia.
Huberty became a survivalist with deep suspicion of the government. He believed the “black copters” were coming and blamed the US government for his failures. He began to collect weapons and believed the right to bear arms was under assault by the government, that international bankers were controlling the Federal Reserve, and that Soviet aggression was everywhere. Huberty stocked up on food and more weapons with the belief that a great conflagration was near, with either nuclear war or the breakdown of society. He always had a gun within arm's reach. He complained that the country was abusing working people and was out to get people like him.3
A move to Tijuana, Mexico, in the fall of 1983 did little to improve his situation. He put most of the family's belongings in storage but took the arsenal with him. His wife and daughters seemed to acclimate to their new surroundings, but Huberty became withdrawn. After only three months, they moved just across the border to San Ysidro, California, a suburb of San Diego, where Huberty was able to find work as a security guard.4 The family was cramped in a two-bedroom apartment. A car accident not long before they had left Ohio had left Huberty with neck pain and shaking hands. He was depressed and began hearing voices.
Finally, in July 1984, James was fired from his job. He called a mental health facility and complained about having strange thoughts. When the facility didn't return his call, he told his wife he was going to hunt humans and left with his Uzi, an automatic pistol, and a shotgun. The first automatic weapon used in a mass killing would make its debut at a McDonald's.
Huberty drove down the hill to the San Ysidro McDonald's that was visible from his apartment. It was July 18, 1984, and Huberty was about to enter history as the worst mass killer in the United States at that time. He entered the McDonald's carrying the 9mm Browning semiautomatic pistol, the Uzi carbine, and a Winchester 12-gauge pump shotgun. He had a brown bag full of hundreds of rounds. There were forty-five customers in the McDonald's when Huberty entered. He told everyone to lie down on the floor.5
James Huberty aimed his shotgun at a sixteen-year-old employee, John Arnold. The gun didn't fire and assistant manager Guillermo Flores shouted, “Hey John, that guy's going to shoot you.”6 Everyone thought it was a joke until Huberty raised his Uzi and shot manger Neva Caine dead with a bullet entering just under her eye. Huberty then got his shotgun working and shot at Arnold. Screaming that the people in the restaurant were dirty swine, Huberty shot Victor Rivera fourteen times with the Uzi when he stepped up to reason with him.
Huberty then turned his attention toward six women and children huddled together near the counter. He shot and killed eighteen-year-old María Elena Colmenero-Silva with a single gunshot to the chest. He killed nine-year-old Claudia Perez with a spray of bullets from his Uzi, wounding Perez's fifteen-year-old sister, Imelda, in the hand and eleven-year-old Aurora Peña in the leg. Aurora was partially shielded by her pregnant aunt, eighteen-year-old Jackie Reyes. Jackie died as Huberty shot her forty-eight times with the Uzi. Beside his mother's body, eight-month-old Carlos Reyes sat screaming. Huberty shouted at the baby to shut up and then killed him with a single pistol shot to the center of his back.
Huberty shot and killed a sixty-two-year-old truck driver named Gus Verslius, before targeting families who tried to hide under tables, shielding children with their bodies. Blythe Regan Herrera had crawled under a booth with her eleven-year-old son, Matao, while her husband, Ronald Herrera, went under the booth opposite with Matao's friend, twelve-year-old Keith Thomas. As Huberty opened fire on them, Thoma
s was shot twice, in the shoulder and arm, but was not seriously wounded; Ronald Herrera was shot eight times, in the stomach, chest, arm, and head, but he survived; Blythe and Matao were both killed, struck with multiple gunshots.
Twenty-four-year-old Guadalupe del Rio and thirty-one-year-old Arisdelsi Vuelvas Vargas hid under another booth with their friend Gloria Soto Ramirez. Guadalupe and Gloria lay against the wall, while Arisdelsi huddled in front of them. When Huberty fired under the booth at them, Gloria was not hit, while Guadalupe was struck in the back, abdomen, chest, and neck but was not critically injured. Arisdelsi, however, was shot in the back of the head. She lived long enough to make it to the hospital, but she died there the next day.
Teenage employees died as they tried to escape. Forty-five-year-old banker Hugo Velazquez Vasquez was killed with a single shot to the chest. Huberty shot three eleven-year-old boys riding into the parking lot on their bicycles; two of them died there, while the third lay in his own blood for an hour before he could be pulled to safety. An elderly couple were gunned down as they started to enter the restaurant. A family of three were caught in their car and sprayed with bullets, critically injuring the parents and the baby girl.
Seventy-seven minutes later, the carnage in the McDonald's ended when a police sniper shot Huberty through the heart. The killer's body lay sprawled on the floor of the restaurant next to his victims.
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