Original subtitles

Every time I would wake up and scream because I thought that I was living

the same thing. It was many years living the same thing, seeing everything I

looked at, and going through, and feeling.

I would wake up wet, sweating, crying, as if it had just been

yesterday, and still.

As if it had just never happened.

It hurt me a lot.

A lot.

It destroyed my life.

I looked at many things.

I looked at many families.

I looked at their dead bodies.

Men, women, children.

I looked at many dead people and many victims.

When I looked around, it was a mess. It was very bloody in there.

There were people laying all over the place.

The first group of people that I encountered looked like a family.

Three people, a family.

Mom and dad and an infant.

One of the parents was face down, the other parent was face up, and the infant

was... wedged in right between them. They were obviously dead.

Some people on line were down.

The suspect was down.

As I turned to look at the main dining area, there were bodies all over the

place. And about that time, a lieutenant came in and started having people exit

the restaurant, which at that time, I... It was great because...

I needed to get out of there and I did

Do

you

remember that job like it was yesterday?

Yes I worked in the back supplies and storage and as a cook as well. Different

roles and responsibilities depending on what time of the day it is.

So I was just learning the job, first job I ever had pretty much.

So you almost didn't show up for work that day?

Correct. I wasn't going to go in. My friends were going to the beach that day

in the summertime and they invited me to go with them.

And I woke up and I'm like, I kept fighting it. Should I go? Should I not

go? And something kept telling me not to go into work, but I didn't want to.

I wasn't brought up that way where you just call in sick and lie.

How long were you an employee there before this happened?

Three months.

Was it a very busy McDonald's? Yeah, very busy.

A lot of children, because there's a lot of children in that community, and

they'd all come to play in our playground and not really eat, but they

occupied the playground area.

This is the Avril Villas apartment complex.

It has since been renamed.

This is exactly where the shooter lived. You saw his apartment, number nine.

I'm about to show you now how close he lived to that McDonald's where he

changed many, many lives.

Okay, we're leaving the apartment complex now of where the shooter lived

and gonna drive to the site of the tragedy.

I'm gonna say it's maybe 200 feet.

Half a block.

This is how close the shooter lived to the McDonald's. As a matter of fact, the

Yum Yum Donuts is still there, and the post office is still here as well.

And we're already here. This is how long it took him to go from his apartment

complex to the McDonald's.

When the killer walks in,

Did you see him walk in? Where were you exactly in the restaurant?

I did not see him walk in. The first idea I had of

anything going on is he fired the first shot.

Everything happened so fast so I really don't know exactly what happened but I

know that the one girl, she got shot and I saw the body.

Fly, and then I knew, like, everybody starts screaming and, yeah, running,

screaming. Who was that, one girl?

The manager, Neva.

Did you see him firing at people? Yes, I did. I saw him coming in. I saw him tell

everybody to get to the floor, and then he started.

shooting at everyone.

People that tried to get up and tried to run out of the McDonald's, he started

shooting at them.

They were sitting in the back of the restaurant.

kind of by the play area.

We got under the table.

I had gotten shot, but I hadn't realized I had been shot in both arms.

I didn't really feel it.

Just the heat, that's all I felt, the heat from the bullets.

The call came out originally, as I can remember, some type of disturbance where

a little girl had been shot.

I had no clue what I was about to enter into.

I could only imagine maybe she got in the middle of some type of disturbance

and was shot.

Whether it was accidentally or on purpose, I had no clue.

Did the police go to the wrong McDonald's in the very beginning?

What happened was there's two McDonald's, one on the west side, one on

the east side.

Originally, when the call came in, I was dispatched to the McDonald's on the east

side.

About a block away, I was called again, and that was corrected.

And that cost the department about how much time?

Probably a couple minutes, two,

three, four minutes at most.

I heard the french fry machine kept going off because somebody had put

french fries and then we weren't there to take it when the timer went off. So I

know that all the alarms started going off right away.

I couldn't really make out a lot of the things he said, but he had a radio. At

first I thought maybe he's trying to hear himself, like if they're reporting

on him or whatever, but he would play music.

He wasn't trying to find people talking, he would play music.

I just remember seeing the shooter's legs and boots when I was under the

table.

Ron was kind of blocking my... I was on the inside, he was on the outside of the

booth.

And at one point I got shot.

and he just kept asking me not to move.

I didn't really realize what was going on. At the time, I kind of did.

The fact is that he saved my life and he took seven shots for me, you

know, and had he not done that, I probably wouldn't be here today.

Me and my two friends, Omar and David, went to Yum Yum Donuts to have some

donuts and then we think we wanted sundaes or something so we walked pushed

our bikes across the parking lot to mcdonald's and um somebody across the

street called us and he's probably trying to warn us i guess i don't know

he couldn't really hear him so i turned partially around and got hit on my right

side my friend omar turned all the way around got shot in the back and then

david never turned around he got shot in the chest and then um

So we all went down, and there's blood squirting out of my arm. I didn't know

what happened. You know, it's the last thing you think of. You've been shot,

you know. So I was dropped to my knees, and he kept shooting at me. He kept

shooting the car windows out next to me, and my lungs started to collapse, and I

couldn't breathe.

It's like I was suffocating.

This was not television. This was the real thing happening right in front of

me, and I was capturing it all with my eyes and my emotions and trying to make

sense of what was going on, trying to figure out how in the world was I going

to cover this. Before I could even realize it, I heard the whistles of the

gunshots past my head, and I hit the ground. In fact, I hit the ground so

hard I thought I'd been shot because when I came up, I had blood on my face

and on my hands, and I actually hit my nose on the pavement.

I told my husband to get to San Isidro as soon as possible, to go to San Diego.

We arrived, and I told him, let's eat tacos, and he said, no, let's go to

McDonald's.

We arrived at McDonald's, he parked near the post office.

I grabbed my daughter, we walked a little like this, in the middle of

the... McDonald's and the car.

It was when I started to feel the shot.

Like a bomb.

I felt something like a bomb.

At that moment I felt blood. I crouched down and looked at my daughter. But I

didn't let her go. I hugged her and crouched down and looked at my daughter

bleeding.

So I started screaming, my eye, my eye.

When we looked...

I felt that they shot us again. My husband said to me, give me the girl.

And I gave it to him.

So he said to me, run.

But he ran to the side of the post office and I to the left side. And I

looked at myself, I had a lot of blood in my stomach, in my leg and

in my arm.

When I arrived, I parked on one of the driveways of the post office right next

to the mcdonald's the last information updated information i received was that

the little girl was being carried into the post office that's where my focus

was i had no idea about the mcdonald's who is the girl i i never saw the girl

never met the girl walking to the post office is when i first noticed something

was wrong people were hiding behind cars and they were looking toward the

mcdonald's And I was right in the middle of the lot, and I looked over.

I lucked out. I really lucked out because when I looked over, the suspect

was just coming out of the side door by the drive-thru.

And that's the first time I saw him.

And what got my attention was he had the long barrel Uzi held across his chest

like this. And he spotted me and shot at me.

I would have been justified in shooting back, but I was completely outgunned. I

had a .38 caliber handgun.

The best I could do was to take cover. I got behind a truck.

He did his best to shoot through the truck, around the truck, over the truck.

Are you scared at all?

Yeah, I was scared, but I wasn't scared panicky.

I could feel the urgency and I could feel the danger, but my mind was working

because, you know, I had a job to do.

And I think I even thought about feeling a little bit sad because

my mom was going to find out that I was killed.

And as fast as that thought came in, it was gone, and I was thinking

what I had to do.

Was there any point during the shooting that someone could have grabbed him?

No, I wanted to do that, but there's just no way.

When you have someone that's armed the way he was.

There's just no way.

It's not like in the movies where you're fast enough that you can jump or

whatnot. There's just no way.

I would take peeks, and I would look up, and I would see him go up to people and

shoot them.

And then I would duck down because, again, not only was he firing at the

people, but he kept shooting all inside the building.

Again, it's all made out of stainless steel.

So when he was firing, I'd look up, and I'd see what he was doing, and then I'd

duck down because the bullets were ricocheting, and I just didn't want to

get hit by a bullet.

And you'd go and reload, right?

He'd wait a few minutes, five minutes, ten minutes, and then he'd go back up to

people and start shooting them some more. And some people that were laying

there, I don't know if they were plain dead or if they were dead already, but

he'd go up to people that weren't moving at all and shooting them some more.

The shooter said that if they kept quiet, he wouldn't harm them.

We need somebody to do the yum yum.

I'm just trying to stay alive at that point. I'm just thinking about breathing

because it was tough to breathe. That's all I remember. I needed air and I

couldn't get enough.

Decided to take short, quick breaths.

But that's all I can think of at the time is I didn't want to die, you know.

David, when he got shot, he was pretty much done right away.

Omar was crying for his mom. I remember him screaming for his mom.

it's something don't forget when you see life leave the body because they go into

these convulsions and like hovering across the ground it's it's kind of

crazy but omar was vomiting yeah omar was vomiting david died right away omar

took him a few minutes and then he did his little death rolls and then he

started vomiting and then he was still that was it i knew it was over

I saw the elderly lady go to open the door, and he shot her, and then I

think he, I don't know where he shot her. I was laying down, I was looking

down the walkway, and she went down, and then her husband came over and was

kneeling over her body, and he looked up, and then he shot him.

When you first got to the scene, tell me what you saw.

A madhouse, quite frankly. I don't think anybody had fully realized exactly what

they had on their hands.

They saw dead children.

And that should have told them right then and there, they had a real problem.

You wanted to tell yourself that you weren't seeing what you were seeing.

I keep going back to what I initially saw, which was a dead child laying on

his bicycle.

I see him to this day.

It's Omar?

Yeah.

It was pretty easy to tell, even from a little distance, that he was dead.

My mission was, in my mind, was to get into a tactical position.

to prevent the suspect or the suspects from escaping.

I ended up in a prone position behind a palm tree, pretty thick palm tree, and

at one point he came, still inside the restaurant, came by one of the doors,

one of the side doors by the drive-thru, and I could see him through the window.

I had him in my sights for a couple seconds.

The shot was not taken because at that point I didn't know whether...

There were more than one, whether this was a hostage type of situation.

Officer Mike Rosario was first on scene.

Apparently he had a shot. Should he have taken that shot?

I can understand why he wouldn't want to take the shot. McDonald's windows are

reasonably thick.

Right, but a bullet's a bullet, don't you think?

Who knows whether it's going to deflect it and only wound him and make him even

madder or miss him completely.

But does he have the authority to take that shot? I would think so. Yeah, so

you think he should have taken that shot.

He could have tried it But it might not have worked You really had to think

about what makes sense here.

It didn't make sense to me that this guy would be alone.

I shoot him and His buddies start executing people in retrospect

Would you have taken that shot?

You know, I thought about that

And I remember coming to the conclusion in my mind that without the information

that I had at the moment, I made the right call.

I'm very comfortable with that.

No guilt there, no living within.

No guilt. Could have been, should have been, nothing. No guilt, because you

can't.

I mean, you could. You want to beat yourself up over that, and you can.

I think that's one of the reasons I've been able to move on with my life

without being traumatized in my mind is because I didn't allow myself

to go there and to second-guess myself.

And I'm good with that.

When I was in there, I was, like, wondering, where are the police? Where

are the police? Like, it just kept going on and on. And I know that's not, like,

okay that he's still shooting. And it's been, like, ongoing, ongoing.

He's killing more people.

And the police aren't coming in. Like, shoot him.

Shoot him.

And they just, we thought they weren't there. We were like, we could hear the

sirens and stuff coming.

Nobody came in like nobody stopped him. He just kept shooting and shooting

people screaming and Then it got quiet and he just kept shooting and I was

like, what is he shooting at now?

I counted about 125 bullets before I lost count so he fired a lot of rounds

inside that place It was very loud.

A lot of the rounds were ricocheting off the stainless steel when he was close by

reloading. I could hear the clicking of the magazines, but other than that, you

know, I had ringing in my ears from the bullets and, you know, from the muzzle

fire.

and I grabbed her, and at two o'clock I shaved her head.

He went and kicked me. I had to pretend to be dead so that he wouldn't kill

me. Then he thought that he had killed me too, because there was a lot of blood

around me, and he scratched my arm, and my eldest daughter had bullets in her

leg.

And that's why, thank God, he protected us.

We're just trying to keep calm and quiet so he didn't hear us while we were

hiding and hunching down in between a couple of aisles.

And then eventually he heard us.

Like you guys were talking?

No, just the females that were with me were crying and we were trying to keep

them quiet because they were very scared.

And I think eventually he heard us. I'd say about maybe 35 to 40 minutes later,

it's when he found us hiding hunched down in between a couple of aisles.

And he just started shooting us right away.

I remember Maggie pushing me, telling me, run, run. She grabbed my arm.

I never looked at her. I just shook my arm down and kept running, and I got out

of the way of the bullets, and she did it. She

stayed there.

Where did you go next?

I went in the closet.

You went to the closet.

I ran to go out the emergency exit, but that was locked.

That's a tough break.

Yeah. So everyone that was in the closet with me had the same idea. We all ran

for the emergency exit. We weren't trying to go in the closet.

Why was that door locked?

They were afraid we were going to steal food.

And how many people hid in there?

Six.

Wow.

Yeah. And a baby.

So then he shoots you five times. Yes.

And I guess he thought you were dead. That's why he didn't... No, he ended up

running out of ammunition.

After he killed my coworkers and he shot me, he ran out of ammunition on me. And

he went to the front to reload.

And when he went back to the front to reload, I tried to get up to get out of

there. And I fell on my face because I was shot in my leg and I couldn't walk.

So I ended up crawling.

out of the main floor and downstairs into a closet.

How did you do that despite being injured?

Just the will to get out of there, to try to stay alive.

That's amazing.

I don't know what else to say.

Good for you. If that's not guts, let's get rid of that word.

I understand you were a great football player. Did that athleticism help you? I

don't know.

When you're under such stress and you just want to live and survive, you're

going to do whatever it takes.

And I wasn't really thinking. I was just wanting to leave and get out of that

area because I knew that he was going to come back to finish me off.

I never looked back. I just crawled and crawled and crawled, just hoping that he

didn't see me and hear me as I made my way downstairs into the closet.

He came while we were locked in there, and we could only hear. We didn't know

who it was, and he slid against the door.

He said, please let me in.

And then we said, it's Albert.

And then they opened the door and they drug him in.

And then he fell like amongst us as there was no room in there. And he

collapsed like at first, but he was in so much pain and

shot all over the place. Like it was just horrible. And he couldn't make any

sounds.

He couldn't even cry because.

That would jeopardize our safety.

When I was down in the closet, I took the shoelaces off my shoes, and I used

one on my right leg to stop, control the bleeding of the tourniquet, and my left

arm, because it was bleeding heavily, and then I grabbed a cloth and I bit on

it. Now, during this whole time, are you wondering where in the world is the

police?

Yes, I am.

I arrived at the shopping center adjacent to the McDonald's at I

believe about 4.40 p.m. I got up on top of the roof along with my spotter, Barry

Bennett, at about 5.02 p.m. 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 sometimes when the shooter was firing out towards the street

and towards the fire trucks, see the ricochets of the rounds.

The shooter within the McDonald's had a lot of advantages where he was at. He

had a clear feel of the fire outside because of the parking lots.

Other officers told me that as they tried to advance over to

the McDonald's to give aid to the kids that were shot outside the door. They

were driven back by gunfire. There was no cover for them to protect themselves.

The windows of the McDonald's were tinted and

I believe was laminated glass.

There were bullet holes through the glass, but the glass did not shatter. 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.

The only reason I could see inside was that his gunshots shattered a double

door of safety glass.

He was sitting on the counter where you would order food, had his legs dangling

off of it. I could see him basically from the thigh down.

He appeared to be reloading one of his magazines.

I waited until he hopped off the counter, and then he walked towards the

door with the broken glass and then stopped to where the top of the door

frame covered his head and neck, but I had a clear view of his chest and torso.

So then I shot him through the heart.

Everybody was glad it was apparently over, but bear in mind that

nobody yet had realized the full scene.

Nobody knew how many people were dead inside that restaurant.

Nobody knew there was an infant shot to death.

Apparently, when I got there, the shot, I believe, had already been fired that

had knocked down the suspect.

I just saw a lot of chaos going on, people everywhere, you know, trying to

watch as he was going on. All the police officers were still trying to contain

the scene, set up traffic posts.

Not nearly the the amount of carnage was suspected that ultimately was found as

people were saying, you know There's a couple people shot or something a couple

people outside because they were getting it from different vantage points

As

the people started

coming out it became chaos because

People didn't want to come to the police.

They were looking for their loved ones, even if they were wounded.

They were trying to get to people that they knew.

Information is of the utmost at that time. I mean, you don't have another

suspect that took off or, you know, was no longer in, could have come out with

the hostages, could be one of the hostages.

He opened up all through the house, all around here. There were bullets

ricocheting all over the place.

I didn't get a chance to see him, but it was scary.

Real scary.

He was just shooting at anything. It was just so much gunfire.

It's terrible.

Were you scared?

Really scared?

I was scared, but at the same time, I was more scared at the people inside.

One of the first persons to come out was Guadalupe.

and I noticed that she had some blood on her dress.

And at that point, I asked her if she was okay, and she said, yes.

I said, are you sure?

She says, yes. She did not realize she had been shot at that time. She saw the

blood, but she didn't think it was hers. And I didn't want to have her panic, so

I walked over to the ambulance, and they treated her from there.

I don't remember the video of my mom running.

I don't remember that.

I remember later, inside the mail, that I remember there were walls with boxes.

I didn't know what they were. They were P.O. Boxes.

And they were covered in blood, the wounded were thrown there, screaming.

And that's when I was really scared.

In the end an alarm went off and that's why we couldn't hear when the police

came into the building.

We didn't know and then we heard someone at the closet and they were yelling

something.

And they threw the closet door open and they put all their guns on us and they

were trying to figure out who we were because they didn't know we were in

there. I guess they were telling us that they were in there and to come out if

you need help or whatever. We didn't hear any of that.

He was just kind of hunched up and I just grabbed his leg and tried to wake

him up. I thought he was asleep like I was.

I don't think he really registered.

that he was dead.

I don't think I really realized that.

I was in a lot of shock, so I don't think I realized that until later.

I didn't know where my daughter was, because we were taken to three different

hospitals. One for me, one for the girl. I didn't know if she was alive, if she

was dead, if she had survived.

I didn't know anything.

Somebody ran up to my car and said, the baby's been shot.

And so what I did was I placed the woman in the car with me. And she didn't speak

any English. She kept saying, it's not my baby.

I said, it's OK. And so she was holding the head wound, and I was holding the

back wound or some other wound that was on the back of the baby.

And I drove with one hand and administered first aid to the baby as we

drove to the hospital.

So how many times were you shot?

I don't know the exact number.

I have a few scars in my back.

Where?

My mom and I have the same scar in the stomach.

You were shot in the head?

Yes.

A lot of people obviously were involved in me surviving, so I'm very thankful.

The nurse, the police.

that was holding my wound, the stranger that took me.

Her left eye is a fake eye.

It was very

painful to see my daughter in a photo in this situation, when

I wasn't there with her.

The three of us were being operated on at that time in different hospitals.

I think if I had looked at him like that, it would have been... I think one

of my worst nightmares.

For this image.

I don't hold a grudge against this man.

Maybe if my daughter had died, maybe he would have had

a lot of grudge.

Were you given access inside the McDonald's? I saw the videotape and I

think for a long time I was the only one who did. The police department video

crew, who I'd been working with earlier that day, went in and

shot the aftermath scene before any of the bodies were

taken out.

And I saw that tape.

I wish I hadn't.

You're viewing the body of a male Mexican, approximately 10 years

old. He's wearing brown cords and a camouflage shirt.

He is located on the west sidewalk of the patio area at the McDonald's

restaurant.

We are now viewing the body of a male Mexican, approximately 10 years old,

wearing brown shorts and a green t-shirt.

He is lying on his stomach with a large amount of vomit in front of his face.

We now view the remains of a female Mexican lying on her stomach.

He was wearing a pair of white pants and a white blouse.

Now viewing the remains of a male Mexican wearing blue shorts and a blue

shirt.

He is also lying on the west walkway right outside the double doors of the

restaurant area.

It's just a little bit slower, Jim.

Watch yourself through here. It's panning out.

And also, the floor is slick.

Do you want to do a farther shot?

I looked over and I saw McDonald uniform and then I'm assuming that was Maggie

where she fell and got shot a bunch of times there and that was the most, that

was the most, that was the worst part of everything is seeing her.

I'll never forget, I'll never forget what she looked like.

I was the lieutenant and SWAT commander in San Ysidro in July of 1984.

If you had to do it all over again, would you do anything differently?

You have the worst case scenario you could possibly come up in San Diego.

You've got it right at the border, in rush hour traffic, when the light's on

those windows so you can't see through, when you have a madman firing.

251 rounds out through there at those police officers the whole time.

The windows had all been spidered by all the gunfire that he had already done.

You couldn't see in the building because of the sun.

And you've got victims all around the perimeter of the restaurant and inside

the restaurant. I don't know what you could do differently.

According to the Union Tribune, your beeper wasn't working. And you got word

about the shooting 30 minutes later.

Is that true?

It is.

Top brass on the police department was having a workshop in Mission Bay.

I was facilitating that.

I didn't know. My beeper never went off.

At some point, a couple of the other beepers went off in the room and they

told me I needed to get on the radio and respond immediately.

So why wasn't the beeper working?

Well, I don't know. This is 1984.

We're not talking about the technology we have now.

Is it fair to say because the beeper wasn't working, that cost you half an

hour and that could have cost?

people from being saved. No, it's not fair to say that.

The Mexican community was absolutely crippled by this.

What would you like to tell the Mexican?

Well, you know, I learned more that day about disasters than I've learned in

everything since.

You know, no matter how well you perform, when 21 people die, there's

simply no way to say, I'm sorry.

According to La Prensa, a big newspaper in the South Bay, there were some keys

missing. Is that true?

Keys? Yes.

I don't know what that means. Daniel Munoz wrote an article about how some

keys were missing and the SWAT team couldn't get inside their vehicles

quickly enough to get to the scene. Well, I would think Daniel Munoz may

have made that up. I don't know that. I've never heard that before.

They printed some articles when I was running for political office, and they

were obviously hit articles. They weren't based on fact. They were based

on emotion or just what they wanted to be based on.

just made that up i mean that's well i did that's very irresponsible well i'm i

don't really i don't have a clue what exactly was that social function you

were at i was told that it might have even been a mini party there was

drinking going on well i mean jerry this is all i'm hearing i know so it was a it

was a workshop that the chiefs put on i was asked to help facilitate it because

i was a lieutenant in field operations and also the swat commander There was

some type of strategic planning going on. It certainly wasn't a party of any

type, and I would imagine we held those probably two or three times a year, and

you do them during the work day.

So was there any drinking going on? Not that I recall.

Were you drinking?

Well, as a lieutenant, you don't drink around anybody.

And in fact, I never drank when I was in a position of authority on the police

department. What time did you get on scene?

I got on scene a little bit after 5 o'clock.

So I think I got my notification at about 4.34, 4.35, jumped right on the

freeway, but it was rush hour traffic.

At the end of the day, you'd have to say there were some mistakes made.

I don't think they were deliberately made.

When you say mistakes, can you be more specific?

Well, Jerry Sanders, I think, would admit that it was probably a mistake in

hindsight.

to have called off the green light, allowing the sniper to go ahead and take

a shot. But he was far away, and he didn't know what he had, and as a SWAT

commander, he needed to know what he had.

Some of the people interviewed in the movie talked about you rescinding that

green light.

Do you regret doing that? Did that lose time?

Some people said, well, shouldn't Jerry have had more trust in the people that

were there that day?

The green light is simply a term of art, and I don't think a lot of people

understood that.

With a red light, It simply means you can't take a shot if the person's not

presenting any danger. I wanted to make sure we had an accurate description,

that we knew how many suspects were inside before we told people to shoot.

Foster said he knew all along he could have shot any time that he saw them, and

he would have.

Not having the green light does not mean it can't fire.

It's just that the suspect would have to be showing an immediate threat to

another officer or myself.

or to another person after that incident we stopped using those code words and

just went to plain language so it wasn't until after you went in there then you

found out that people had been murdered you bet you bet you bet nobody nobody

knew um you know that this guy was just by himself and and just

arbitrarily shooting people. So no time during those 77 minutes law enforcement

knew that people were being murdered?

That's to my knowledge.

You could see him moving around. You could see the shadowy figure in there

and I actually saw him loading and reloading and firing into the people and

firing outside.

Did you know that a man was in there shooting babies, innocent people?

No. We knew that people were being shot.

We knew people had been shot. There were some on the perimeter.

There were also people who were alive on the perimeter crouched down, which meant

the officers couldn't rush it and couldn't fire back in there.

Did you see anyone else get murdered?

Yeah, I saw several people get shot.

As we arrived shortly after the incident began, the scene was one of absolute

confusion. Shots were ringing out. The nightmare was unfolding.

I saw one older woman carrying what looked like a child get shot.

in the back and the child sort of the woman and the child fall and then he

takes him and started shooting into the in what looked like a lot of people but

all i could see was you know the window and and some some signs and the

mcdonald's arches and it was really tough to see through the glass but it

was clear what was going on in there the people who you saw get shot were they

inside the restaurant inside inside you couldn't see in the building because of

the sun they couldn't see anyone in there and they also didn't know who was

in there I don't believe it was in anybody's mind, certainly not my own,

that anything else had happened other than possibly a robbery gone bad, and

that for some reason the shooter was still inside and shooting at the cops

and shooting at the firemen, but not killing off everybody inside that he

could. So what's the greater risk here, intervening and killing innocent people

or having some madman just firing away?

I simply don't know how you would do it differently, not having accurate

descriptions, having someone firing three different weapons so you think

there's three suspects.

You have to have a plan before you go in so you don't get more people killed.

At the beginning of the incident, we'd gotten at least three different suspect

descriptions of possible shooters inside.

Just shooting one might anger.

any additional suspects inside to then shoot hostages.

And then we got information that brought it down to just one suspect.

And once that was done, then we were once again given a green light.

He entered the facility heavily armed, immediately started shooting everybody.

The customers that were inside the restaurant had absolutely no chance to

escape.

The fact of the matter is, I don't know if you know this, the majority of the

people that were killed were killed within the first couple of minutes.

Now, some witnesses who I've already talked to would refute that.

I said the majority.

Commander Larry Gore said most, if not all, of the victims were shot in the

first 10 minutes.

Do you agree with that?

No, that never happened.

Why would they make such a irresponsible statement like that?

I can't speak for them.

When Albert got shot he was hiding and got discovered and that wasn't until

well into halfway into it and he was with three or four other people and they

all ran and a couple of them died and the other ones got shot so that wasn't

the first ten minutes.

I tend to believe someone who was actually inside there watching it,

feeling it, hearing it.

You said it was consistent throughout, right? So like 40 people were shot.

So over the 77 minutes, that's an average of one person getting hit every

two minutes. So you think it was pretty consistent throughout? No, I think they

did shoot a lot in the beginning. He did shoot a lot of people in the beginning.

But I don't think that the majority is killed in the first 10 minutes. I mean,

some of them were shot and not dead.

Like EMTs could have came in and saved them, you know, if they would have had

access to come into the building.

They laid there and he would get, I don't know, bored or I don't know what

his problem was. He would reshoot people.

What would you like to tell Ronald Herrera, who was shot 45 minutes apart

and is angry, I believe to this day, about... Well, and he should be angry to

this day. I would be angry also.

Once again, I want to tell you that being a victim inside for 77 minutes is

much different than trying to plan the response.

Police also said that...

most if not all the victims were killed in the first 10 minutes.

Now, how would they know that if they couldn't see inside?

Well, I believe that from witness statements and from things that people

told us.

That, you know, that his initial firing, he walked around, he shot people.

People had already gone down, he shot them again.

I believe he shot people for a period of time in there, 10.

maybe 15 minutes but beyond that point he was concentrating his firing and his

efforts on police officers maybe they bled to death because it took an hour

and 17 minutes according to the coroner's office 13 of the deceased

victims inside would have died almost immediately when they were shot

several others could have survived for a few minutes

but probably not a long time so again who knows it's pure speculation at

this point why was the murderer handcuffed when he was already dead it

was swat policy at the time to immediately handcuff the suspect they

felt that he was dead they checked him but they had many other wounded people

in there that needed help and so that was their first thought was to save life

and protect life

How did you ID some of the bodies?

When I identified, it was the second day because this was a long investigation.

The bodies were there for quite some time.

The homicide people took Polaroids of all of the victims that were there.

And we set up an auditorium, and it was a short distance away from McDonald's.

This was probably one of the most difficult things I've ever done in my

career. I had Polaroid pictures of...

Kids that had been murdered and I had to show those pictures to the audience

because obviously these kids don't carry Identification in their pocket as an

adult would so when I held those photographs up and my partner did we

would see people that would immediately be affected in the crowd that would

recognize that as one of their loved ones and we would have to contact that

either person individual or groups and They would be crying and emotional and

we would get crying

excuse me, and emotional ourselves, and we would have to get the information.

I mean, that probably is the most outstanding thing in my mind of this

whole situation, other than the sorrow and the heartbreak that took place with

all the people in the community.

We really didn't have a whole lot of violence there. A lot of Mexican

families, a little bit of poverty, but nice community.

What it was known for was the heroin because of the proximity to the border.

That's what kept us busy.

Other than that, peaceful, very pleasant place to work.

I never had a bad experience in San Ysidro, but I know from crime statistics

that it can be an edgy place.

Anything south of Interstate 8 fits kind of that profile in varying respects.

It's the busiest border crossing in the world. Imagine the millions of stories

that can be told, good, bad, and indifferent, and San Ysidro is the

place, and it is within the city of San Diego. The city of San Diego found a

strange way to annex it so that the San Diego police could control that part of

the border area.

because it can be so dangerous and can be so fluid.

City of San Diego City Fathers made a conscious decision that we need to be on

top of that. That needs to be within the incorporated jurisdiction that we can

govern, police, and serve.

San Ysidro is a wonderful little area, but it's been forgotten and marginalized

and underrepresented forever.

They don't think that San Ysidro gets its due, and they just wanted the border

area.

So the city of San Diego annexed it, but the community is misunderstood and

underserved.

Al, you were quoted as saying that the police are here to serve and protect.

And you said that day we did not serve and protect.

I appreciate your candor.

You want to elaborate on that? Sure.

Do you still believe that today as we sit here?

In some respects, yes, I do.

I think the thing was that when I said it was, it wasn't because we didn't do

our job.

It was because we didn't have enough tools.

We didn't have the intelligence, what was going on. We didn't have the

training up to date like they do now. Things police officers do now are

totally different from what we did back then.

Tell me some of the procedures that changed. I know the SWAT team changed

things. Tell us the overall impact and the changes that this created.

I think the biggest thing over the years is it has made us aware of the active

shooter situation.

No longer are we just going to surround and contain that we need to get in there

or police officers need to get in there and take some kind of action when there

is an active shooter going on. I mean, you get paid to save life and that's

what you got to do. And police officers know that they got to risk their lives

sometimes.

I remember being a little bit pissed off about being armed with a .38 and having

this guy armed with a Nuzi.

It made me aware of the weaponry that's out there and the dangers that police

officers face and the public as well.

Obviously the model has changed.

Now when we have active shooters, we respond and we go inside a building or

we go wherever the active shooter is until we put the threat down.

That's how we do business now because we have so many mass shootings all over the

world and in other parts of the United States.

And I'm proud of what it's evolved to.

We expanded the training. We went to a full-time SWAT team.

It was called SRT. All they did were SWAT duties.

They had take-home vehicles. They were completely prepared all the time.

We learned from all these incidents, better tactics, newer tactics, you know,

things like the robots.

We now have our own fleet of helicopters, have different frequencies

just for SWAT, different radios, much better capabilities and all of that. And

I think the training probably picked up fairly dramatically after that.

So why do these shootings still continue today, and are there any preventive

measures?

Well, we still have deranged people. Somebody who had mental instability, his

family said he did.

He told them he was going out to hunt people, and nobody calls us.

In the morning of the following day, I get a phone call from the shooter's

wife.

And she asked for me by name in the newsroom, called the newsroom.

And when I picked up the phone, I didn't know who it was.

I just answered the phone and I said, hello. She goes, hi, this is the

shooter's wife. She says, I need to tell my story.

And sat down with her.

And she told me about his propensity to shoot weapons in their basement.

Told me about what was going on in his head.

just prior the days prior to the shooting and how he was very calm about

everything else but he was very very much anti-immigrant he

really did not like immigrants he hated

immigrants especially mexican immigrants and and wife told you this the wife told

me this in the interview

On the morning of the San Ysidro shooting, had about 180 to 200 people in

for arraignment on minor traffic violations.

Our check-in time at that was 8 a.m.

He probably came in sometime between 8 and 8.30 that morning.

He came up and gave me a fairly substantial story. I was pretty hard

-nosed about reducing fines, and he indicated that he was from Ohio.

Had only been here for a couple of months, didn't realize that it was a

violation. I can't even tell you what the violation was, but it was minor.

And I ended up suspending a $75 fine.

He exited the courtroom, had his wife and daughter with him.

He was pleasant, articulate, showed no stress, showed no anger.

He was the last person out of the courtroom that morning.

And certainly with his plea of guilty with that explanation, he had the

patience to wait all morning.

And he didn't, even with that three and a half hour wait between signing in for

his court appearance and making the explanation, he didn't appear to be the

least bit upset.

They left there, they went to a McDonald's restaurant, basically right

across the street from the courthouse, and had a meal.

And then on the way...

back to San Ysidro, they made a snap decision to go to the zoo.

They went to the zoo and they were walking around looking at the exhibits

and the suspect said to his wife, well, society had its chance.

And she thought that was a little odd, but she took it as one of his often

irrational statements that he made when they got back to the apartment she was

tired she said she's going in and lay down and take a rest he came in sometime

later and he said to her i'm going hunting i'm going hunting people a lot

of people have told me that this was an attack on mexican people would you agree

with that why didn't he commit the act in claremont why didn't he do it at the

zoo he didn't kill his family so he knew exactly who he was firing at well i

don't know i think more likely first of all he didn't have his weapons with him

when he went to court when he went to the mcdonald's in in claremont he may

have gone in there seen a lot of people in that restaurant and maybe this helped

set him off you know

In this documentary, I refuse to mention the killer's name because it's not worth

it. Do you think if killers knew going in that their name would not be

mentioned in the media, do you think we'd see less murders in our country

because the killer will know going in that my name won't be mentioned?

I think that might be a good thing because they're looking for fame and to

go down in history as a mass murder or whatever, and I respect you for not

putting the name in there.

Did you become a policeman because of this incident?

Yes. It was one of the main reasons why I became a police officer.

After I survived the massacre and I was recovering, I had some sleeping

problems where I had nightmares.

And the nightmares were that I couldn't save the people inside the McDonald's.

I couldn't save the babies, the women, the children. It took me a long time to

little by little work through that.

After I became a police officer, I was... driving down the roadway about 2

2 30 in the morning and i came upon a burning vehicle i just thought it was

just a burning vehicle i didn't think anyone was inside the vehicle it was

about two in the morning nobody else on the freeway and so i pulled over and

when i got out of the vehicle i heard someone yelling and screaming from the

vehicle so i approached the vehicle was completely engulfed and i just Went into

action. I broke the window I reached in I grabbed him and I yanked him out of

the vehicle and I was able to save his life Even though he burned about 70% of

his body He ended up falling asleep behind the wheel after working roughly

18 hours as a painter and his vehicle rolled over a couple of times and it

caught fire and he was trapped in the vehicle and I just had to come at the

right time and and I just felt like Hey, I saved someone's life. I had a second

chance. There's a reason why I'm here.

There's a reason why I'm a police officer. And God gave me that

opportunity where I didn't freeze and I was finally able to come through and

save someone.

Does it bother you that today the media, we glorify the killer and we don't talk

about the victims?

Yes. I think they should do more stories on the victims.

One way or another, their names and who they are should be out there.

More stories should be done of them instead of the actual shooter and his

issues and his problems and his family and their problems. How does that make

us better as a society knowing all that, right? Right.

It was one night after they gave it to me.

We were asleep, and she fell off the bed.

She was sleeping with us, and she fell off the bed.

And I screamed very loudly, and I started screaming, the girl, the girl.

My husband said, calm down.

The girl is fine.

I started screaming, but...

like when I looked at her, she was bleeding.

The girl, the girl, and I started crying.

It was a very strong scare.

It was as if they had shot her.

I felt as if they had killed her, as if I was not going to see her again. And it

was a simple fall from the bed.

She had fallen from the bed, nothing else.

I couldn't calm down at all, and he said to me, calm down, it's okay, it's just a

simple fall from the bed, she's okay.

And I said to him,

I swear you're okay.

I swear you're okay.

That's what happened.

I think that night was when...

I realized the magnitude of what had happened to the three of us.

That night, all of a sudden, I realized that I

had been a victim of that massacre

at McDonald's.

My mom has an album of all

the cards that people sent her about me, like get well.

She has checks that people sent and she never cashed. But they were like small

checks, like $10, $5.

She has, so yeah, people supported us a lot.

We appreciate that.

I read every card.

If you had to tell the shooter one thing, what would that be?

Why?

What were you thinking?

Do you think about him every day?

I already have another life with another man, that is, my husband.

But yes, all that will never be forgotten because it is something that I

went through and something that I lived.

I couldn't say goodbye to him there because he had my daughters injured and

I wanted to be with him and say goodbye and tell him to take us, to not leave

us.

And I couldn't because I had to go with my daughters who were sick.

And well, he always knows that I always loved him a lot.

My name is Maria.

I came to Aquino and my sister was Paulina Aquino López.

That day she was going to work and then she

told me that she didn't want to go to work because it hurt her head.

And I told her, you have to go because you just started working, you have to do

it. And she said that...

He didn't want to go.

And I told him, Andra, you have to do it. And then he went to work.

The whole family in the United States was talking to Tijuana to see where

Paulina was.

They couldn't find her. They couldn't communicate with San Isidro.

So I told them to watch TV so they could see what was going on.

So my mom started praying from that moment on

Tell us about your sister.

Were you upset that it took law enforcement 77 minutes before taking out

the killer?

Yes, here in the United States there is the best and SWAT and everything.

And anyway, they killed a lot of people.

Sorry.

That she forgives me.

That I wanted it to be fulfilled.

And that I love her very much.

That now I would respect the fact that she said, I don't want to go to work.

That I learned from that not to pressure people who have to do things, who have

to decide their own things.

We all used to ride our bikes all over San Ysidro at the time. It was back when

you could do that.

So we'd get on our bikes and ride. That's mostly what we did after school.

My husband came home from work, I don't know, 5, 5.30. I didn't know anything

about it.

And he said, did you hear about San Ysidro? And I turned it on. And I was in

total shock, of course. And I was glued to the television. About an hour or so

later, the principal called. She said it was Omar.

All kinds of feelings, I think, I went through, my goodness, feeling guilty. I

had my two kids sitting here, and they're alive.

And so I did go right down the next morning to see his mom. I just felt I

had to. I couldn't stay at home.

My father was the joy of the house of my father and my parents.

He was a child, as I say, restless,

cheerful.

He didn't know English.

He learned English through jazz.

He would divide us into a circle.

We were on one side and they were on the other.

So they would start talking.

The jazz in English, the Omar in Spanish.

They started to understand each other.

And from there, that very beautiful friendship between them was born.

My father encouraged him a lot.

He loved him a lot, just like my mother.

But, well, the fate was that he would no longer move forward.

But he was a playful, cheerful child.

He was a companion, a good friend.

If you had one last moment with Omar, what would you tell him?

A lot of people told me that the shooter hated Mexican people.

What do you think of that?

It was our 911.

You know, I remember days after, people were stunned and shocked, and we treated

each other more respectfully.

Everybody held doors for each other and let people merge on the roads. I think

the Southwestern College perhaps was a little bit of a redemption for our

community in that people could maybe turn a horrific thing into something

positive.

I had something inside me that was telling me,

that something was going to happen.

Many times I had premonitions of that.

Many times I would wonder, what if my brother died?

And I would.

And I would go to his bed and sleep next to him.

And he would wake up.

He would say, hey, what are you doing in my bed?

So honestly, I was ready for it.

I'm scared of those premonitions now.

I would just hold him.

Hold him.

when he was asleep though, so he wouldn't wake up.

So when it did happen, mentally I was ready.

But yeah, we've spoken in our dreams, in my dreams I've spoken to him.

He's okay. He's with my uncles over there, my grandparents.

He's saying it's good.

Don't come here yet. You will eventually, but he saved me a spot in

heaven.

Every time I step onto that campus,

I remember the day that I was sitting in my living room watching the events of

this attack unfold.

And what I have to do is push myself through those doors, up into that

classroom, into that forum where I can hopefully turn that sentiment

into a positivity.

Before the incident, I was a good kid. I was happy.

And afterwards, I was a different kid.

I didn't want to hang out with my friends anymore.

I became very aggressive.

I was very unhappy

and carried guilt.

Not really realizing it, but I carried guilt.

Ronald Herrera, also critically hurt from orange, was taken to the trauma

center for initial evaluation.

Okay, I sent the blood to the operating room, all right? Bye.

I need a warm blanket.

Right about here.

Hey,

Ron, talk to me.

Talk to me now. You're not talking anymore.

Ron, put your arms down by your side.

You're doing fine.

I think about what he would be like today and what our relationship would be

like today.

Matteo was a lot like Blythe and Ron in the fact that he was just gentle

and kind.

He was a really good artist.

We just had this connection, you know, that we loved the same things. We loved

Star Wars.

We loved music.

I used to just be mesmerized by his ability to draw.

People would say, oh, God was ready to take them home, and I love God, and I

trust God, but I don't always understand God.

I don't really understand what happened and why they're gone.

Do you think about this every day? No.

No.

I wouldn't be able to live, when I used to think about it every day, it hindered

my entire life.

What I thought, where I went, how I acted, everything, it was all around

that, like my safety.

I was so intimidated by loud noises or abrupt people or like being in crowds

and just so many ways that it gets you.

My name is Adriana Wright. I lost my sister at the San Ysidro Massacre,

Jackie Reyes, and my nephew Carlos.

Jackie was 18 and Carlos was 8 months.

I think it was about a month before she had just baptized Carlos.

She probably would have had like 12 kids, you know, because Jackie loved

kids. Jackie was full of life, and Jackie wanted more kids, and that was

her main intention.

Carlos, we put him in his little suit of his baptism.

And Jackie, well, we were going to dress her in her pink dress that she had, but

we couldn't because she was all destroyed. She had no more neck or

anything.

The baby just had, you know, he looked like he was asleep, so we were wondering

if he was dead or not because we would hold him from his right hand and it was

cold, but his left hand was really warm because he received one bullet in his

heart.

I never knew Jackie had gotten so many bullets. I knew she protected my niece.

All I know is that she was doing what her instincts were to protect.

like she was protecting her child too.

But with so many bullets, I mean, she lost the strength.

Imelda too, you know, she was holding her little sister. Her little sister's

head exploded in her arms.

But she prayed a lot for God to give her strength.

If you had one last thing to tell Jackie, what would that be?

Well, that I know she's my angel.

I know she's with me.

Even though I can't see her, I know she's here with me. I can feel her.

It's hard to explain, but I know she's with me.

Because of the physical location of...

Southern Division and San Ysidro compared to the rest of the city Sure,

there was a time delay and getting a lot of officers there within the first 19

minutes Containment now the containment means we've got it surrounded You know,

we're controlling the situation and inside the restaurant Within 19 minutes

that was accomplished with the officers that were present The people, by the

time you guys got there and you guys shot them and you guys went in to try to

save them, they all bled to death because the people that did survive,

they came to us and they told us that they were still alive, but they bled to

death. You can bleed to death in seconds or minutes or hours. It just depends on

the wounds and the injuries. So the people that survived obviously were able

to do that and still bleed.

But I think that if they would have been there sooner or if they would have gone

in sooner or killed them sooner,

Yeah, people would have survived.

Well, I disagree with it under the circumstances of this.

The officers didn't know how many people were in there, how many people were

shooting, you know, because they heard three separate weapons being fired.

They didn't know that they were dealing with one suspect at the time.

And questions always come up, well, why didn't they put gas in there?

What would happen if you threw a gas grenade, tear gas grenade in with a

bunch of...

People that were still alive in there as victims probably would be in total

panic. They'd probably jump up and run around. So they would end up as

additional victims because they would be putting themselves in harm's way.

I've learned that time doesn't stop because if you don't keep moving and you

don't keep healing,

then you're always going to be bitter, you're always going to be upset, you're

always going to try to hide, and I'm not, you know.

I have to move forward, and I have to value things now differently and move

on, move on with life.

I only think about it when someone else brings it up.

My youngest daughter found some information relating to it in my

bookcase and asked me about it.

about a month ago and i probably hadn't thought about it for years since

do

you feel you got away with something that day do i feel i got away with

something so many innocent people were murdered the mexican community was

really upset a lot of the victims were who i've interviewed already said

where's the police Where are they? Ronald Herrera got shot 45 minutes

apart. Do you feel like you got away with something?

No. I think the police department did the best job they possibly could given

the circumstances.

Could the police have shown more guts that day and the SWAT team? The SWAT

team and the police showed great guts that day.

How and why?

They were under fire constantly. They just didn't indiscriminately start

spraying the building.

which would be the instinct of a lot of people.

They withheld their fire five rounds, were fired by police officers, and none

of them injured anybody.

See, this is such a tough case because if you ask victims, they're angry.

If you ask the police, well, we did what we were told.

So how does one look at this?

It's just...

Well, I'll tell you how you look at it. Bad shit happens, and that's it.

And there's not always a rhyme or reason. You do the best you possibly can

under the circumstances, and then you feel bad for survivors.

What would you like to tell all the victims who were killed or wounded at

this time?

I would just give them the advice that

Give your troubles to God.

And he'll help you get through it. He'll never give you more than you can take.

I know that.

If you had all the victims in one room right now, what would you tell them?

I'm sorry.

I couldn't help them.

If you had one thing to say to all the victims, if you had one chance at all in

one room, what would you say to them?