Original subtitles

[Miguel] 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...

look 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 right between them.

They were obviously dead.

Some people online were down.

The suspect was down.

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

About that time, a lieutenant came in and started having people exit the restaurant...

which at that time, I...

I...

it was great, because I needed to get out of there, and I did.

[Albert] Yes, I worked in the back, supplies and storage, and as a cook as well...

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

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

Correct.

I wasn't gonna go in, my friends were going to the beach that day in the summer time...

and they invited me to go with them, and I woke up, I'm like...

keep fighting it, should I go, should I not go?

Something kept telling me not to go in to work, but I wasn't brought up that way...

where you just call in sick and lie.

Three months.

[Wendy] Yeah, very busy.

Lot of children, because there were a lot of children in that community...

and they'd all come to play in our playground...

not really eat, but they occupied the playground area.

[Charlie] This is the apartment complex.

It has since been renamed.

This is exactly where the shooter lives, he still owns the apartment, No.9.

I'm about to show you now...

how close he lived to that MacDonald's where he changed many lives.

Okay, we're living 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 MacDonald's.

As a matter of fact, that the Yum Yum Donuts is still there.

And the post office is still here as well.

We're already here.

This is how long it took to go from his apartment complex to the MacDonald's.

I did not see him walk in.

The first idea I had of anything going on is he fired the first shot.

Bang!

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

but I know that one girl she got shot and I saw the body fly, and then I knew...

everybody start screaming...

yeah, running, screaming.

The manager, Neva.

Yes, I did. I saw him coming in. I saw him tell everybody to get to the floor.

Then he started shooting at everyone.

People tried to get out, tried to run out of the MacDonald's, he started shooting at them.

We were sitting in the back of the restaurant...

kind of by the play area.

[Keith] We got under the table.

I got shot, but I didn't realize that I'd been shot both arms.

I didn't really feel it, just the heat, that's all I felt, the heat from the bullet.

[call]just occurred. [illegible]

at 400 west San Ysidro three quarter of a 245 shooting...

the victim is a small child, a little girl being take into the first hospital...

across the MacDonald's at 4:40.

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 into a little, some type of disturbance and was shot...

whether accidentally or on purpose, I had no clue.

Uh... what happened was, there were two MacDonald's, one on the west side...

one on the east side.

Originally when the call came in, I was dispatched to the MacDonald's on the east side.

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

Probably a couple of minutes.

Two, three, four minutes, at most.

[Wendy] I heard the French fries machine kept going off...

because somebody has put French fries and then...

we weren't there to take them when the time went off...

so I know that all the alarms started going off right away.

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

At first, I thought maybe he was trying to hear himself...

like they are reporting on him or whatever.

But he was playing music, he wasn't trying to find people talking, he was playing music.

I just remember seeing the shooter's legs and boots...

when I was under the table.

Ronald's blocking my... I was on the inside, he was on the outside of the booth...

at one point I got shot...

and he kept asking me not to move.

[Keith] I didn't really realize what was going on at the time...

what I kind of did is the fact that he saved my life...

and he took seven shots for me.

Had he not done done that, I probably wouldn't be here today.

[Joshua] Me and my two friends Omarr and David went to Yum Yum Donuts...

to have some donuts in there...

and we think we want sundaes or something...

so we walked and pushed our bikes cross the parking lot to MacDonald's.

Somebody acrossed the street called us.

He tried to warn us, I guess, I don't know, we couldn't really hear him...

so I turned partially around, and got hit on my right side.

My friend, Omarr, turned all the way around, got shot on the back...

and David never turned around, he got shot in the chest.

So we all went down, and there is blood springing out of my arm I didn't know what happened...

the last thing you could think of is you got shot, I dropped on my knees...

and he kept shooting at me, he kept shooting the car windows out next to me...

I long started to collapse, I couldn't breath, like I was suffocating.

[Carlos] This was not television...

this was a real thing happening right in front of me.

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 gonna cover this.

Before I could even realize, I heard the whistles of the gunshots pass my head.

I hit the ground, 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.

I actually hit my nose on the pavement.

[Miguel] When I arrived, I parked at one of the driveways of the post office...

right next to the MacDonald's.

The last 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 MacDonald's.

I never saw the girl, never met the girl.

Walking to the post office, it's when I first noticed something was wrong...

people were hiding behind cars, and they were looking towards the MacDonald's.

And, I was right in the middle of a lot and I looked over...

I locked out, I really locked out...

because when I looked over...

the suspect was just coming out of the side door by the drive through...

and that's the first time I saw him.

What got my attention was he had the long barrel Uzi held across his chest like this.

He spotted me and shot at me.

I would've been justified and shooting back...

but I was completely out of gun, 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.

[speaking over the phone]

[speaking over the phone]

Where are you now?

I'm east of the MacDonald's.

Sent for the east of the MacDonald's at 4:10 p.m.

[illegible]

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

I could feel the urgency, I could feel the danger.

But my mind was working, because I had a job to do.

I think I even thought about feeling a little bit sad.

Because my mom was gonna find out that I was killed.

As fast as I thought came in, it was gone...

and I was thinking what I had to do.

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

When you have someone that's armed the way he was, there is just no way.

It's not like in the movies where you're fast enough you could jump, but we're not .

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 of the building.

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

so when he was firing. I'd look up and see what he was doing.

and I'd duck down, because I just didn't want to get hit by a bullet.

He'd go and reload, right?

He waited a few minutes...

five minutes, ten minutes...

and he'd go back up to people and start shooting them some more.

Some people that were laying there, I don't know if they were playing dead...

or they were dead already...

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

We need somebody at the Yum Yum Donuts, we have three children that have been shot.

But from what I understand is the suspects are inside of the MacDonald's restaurant.

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

because it was tough to breath, that's all I remember.

I needed air, I couldn't get enough.

So I had to take short quick breath.

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

[Joshua] David, when he got shot, he was pretty much down right away.

Omarr was crying for his mom, I remember him screaming for his mom.

It's something you don't forget when you see life leave the body.

because they go into these convulsions and like hovering the crossy ground, it's crazy.

Yeah, Omarr was vomiting. David died right away.

Omarr took a few minutes, and he did his little death rows and he started vomiting.

And then he was still, I knew that was it, I knew it was over.

I saw the elderly lady go open the door and he shot her.

And then... I don't know where he shot her...

I was laying down and looking down the walkway.

She went down and her husband came over kneeling over her body...

and he looked up at him and he shot him.

A mad house.

Quiet frankly.

I don't think anybody had fully realized exactly what they had on their hands.

They saw dead children.

That should've told them right there, they had a real problem.

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

I keep going back to what I initially saw, it was just a dead child

laying on his bicycle.

I see him till this day.

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 all the suspects from escaping.

I ended to 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 through.

I could see him through the window.

I had him in my sights for a couple of seconds.

The shot wasn't taken because at that point I didn't know whether there was more than one...

whether this was a hostage type of situation.

I can understand why he wouldn't want to take the shot.

The MacDonald's windows are reasonably thick.

Who knows whether it's gonna deflect it and only wound him and make him even madder...

or missing completely.

I would think so, yeah.

He could have tried it.

But he might not have worked.

[Miguel] I really had to think about what made sense here.

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

I shoot him, and his buddies started to executing people.

I thought about that.

I remember coming to the conclusion in my mind...

without the information that I had at the moment, I made the right call.

I'm very comfortable with that.

Yeah.

No guilt, no.

No guilt, because you can't... I mean you could, if you want to beat yourself up over that...

you can.

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

without being traumatized in my mind...

it's because I didn't allow myself to go there...

and to second guess myself...

and I'm good with that.

[people speaking on the phone]

Are there any victims we can get through at this point?

Negative.

When I was in there, I was wondering, where are the police...

where are the police, it keeps going on and on, I know that's not okay...

he's still shooting, it's been ongoing, he's killing more people...

and the police aren't coming in shoot him, shoot him.

We thought they weren't there.

We could hear the sirens coming, but nobody came in, nobody stops him, he kept shooting...

and shooting, people screaming, and then it got quiet, he just kept shooting...

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 are off the stainless steel.

When he was close by reloading I could hear the clicking and the magazines...

I had rings in my ears from the bullets, from the muzzle fire.

We were trying to keep calm and quiet so he didn't hear us...

while we were hiding and hunching down between a couple of isles.

And eventually he hears us.

No, the female that were with me were crying and we were trying to keep them quiet...

because we were very scared.

I think eventually he hears us.

I'd say about 35 to 40 minutes later...

it's when he found us hiding and hunched down between a couple of isles.

He started shooting at 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 didn't, she stayed there.

I ran to the closet.

You ran to the closet.

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

Yeah.

[Wendy] So everyone in that closet with me had the same idea...

we all run for the emergency exit, we were trying to go into the closet.

They were afraid we were gonna steal food.

Um... six?

-Wow. -Yeah.

And a baby.

Yes.

No, he ended up running out of ammunition after he killed my coworkers...

he shot me, he ran out of ammunition on me, and he went to the front to reload.

When he went back to the front to reload, I tried to get up to try to get out of there.

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 downstairs into a closet.

It's just the will to get out of there, to try to stay alive.

I don't know, you know when...

when you are under such stress, and you just want to live and survive...

you can do whatever it takes.

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

Because I knew that he was gonna come back and 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, well, we were locked in that, we could only hear, we didn't know who it was...

he slid against the door, saying, please let me in.

And we said, it's Albert.

They opened the door, they dragged him in.

And then, he fell amongst us...

there was no room in there...

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

and shot all over the place, it was just horrible...

he couldn't make any sounds.

He couldn't even cry, because that would jeopardize our safety here.

[Albert] When I was down in the closet, I took the shoelaces off my shoes...

and I used one on my right leg to control the bleeding, trying to get my left arm...

because it was bleeding heavily.

Then I grabbed a cloth and bit on it.

Yes, I am.

I arrived at the shopping center adjacent to the MacDonald's...

at about 4:40 p.m.?

I got up on top of the roof along with my spotter...

at about 5:02 p.m..

Once I got up on to the post office's roof, I could look down upon the MacDonald'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.

I could see the ricochets of the rounds.

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

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

Other officers told me that they tried to advance over to the MacDonald's...

to give aid to the kids that was shot outside the door.

They were driven back by gunfire.

There was no cover for them to protect themselves.

The windows of the MacDonald's...

were tainted...

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 MacDonald's...

through those windows...

I didn't get a chance to see him at all until, just before, shooting in.

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 it, I could see him basically from the five 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...

that I had a clear view of his chest and torso...

so then I shot him through his heart.

Bang!

[people speaking on the phone]

[illegible]

[illegible]

Everybody was glad, it was apparently over.

But buried in mind, nobody yet had realized the full scene.

Nobody knew how many people were dead in that restaurant.

Nobody knew there was an infant shot to death.

Apparently, when I got there...

the shot I believe had already been fired and had knocked down the suspect.

I just saw a lot of chaos going on, people everywhere, trying to watch and see what was going on.

All police officers were still trying to contain the scene, set traffic post.

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

people were saying there was a couple of people shot outside.

because we were getting it from different vantage points.

Because people didn't want to come to the police...

they were looking for the loved ones even if they were wounded.

They were trying to get people they knew.

Information is of the utmost at that time, if you have another suspect took off...

or another could come out with hostages, could beat up one of the hostages...

People went up all through the house all around here.

There was bullets and ricocheting all over the place.

I didn't get a chance to see him but real scary...

real scary.

He was just shooting at anything it was just so such gunfire, it was terrible.

Are 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 come out was Guadalupe.

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

and at that point I asked her if she's okay...

and she said, yes. I said, are you sure?

She said yes, she did not realize that she had been shot at that time.

She saw the blood but she didn't think it was hurt.

I didn't want to have her panic, so I walked over the ambulance, and they treated her from there.

[alarm sirens]

[Wendy] In the end, the 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 hear someone at the closet, 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, I guess they were telling us...

that they were in there come out if you need help or whatever, we didn't hear any of that.

He was hunched up and I just grabbed his legs and tried to wake him up...

I thought he was asleep like I was...

I didn't think it was 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 till later.

[crowd talking]

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

who was in the car with me, she didn't speak English, she kept saying, it's not my baby.

I said it's okay, she was holding the head wound, I was holding the back wound...

that was on the back of the baby.

I drove with one hand, and I ministered the baby as I drove the hospital.

I don't know the exact number.

I have a few scars in my back.

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

Yes.

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

The nurse, the police that were holding my wound...

the stranger that took me.

[Charlie] Her left eye is a fake eye.

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've been working with earlier that day...

went in and...

and shot the after math scene...

before the bodies were taken out...

I saw that tape.

I wish I hadn't.

We're viewing the body...

of a male Mexican...

approximately ten years old...

he's wearing brown shorts and a camouflage shirt.

He is located on the west side walk on the patio area at the MacDonald's restaurant.

We're now viewing the body of a male Mexican, approximately ten years old...

wearing brown shorts and a green T-shirt...

he's 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...

she is wearing a pair of white pants and a white blouse.

Now we're viewing the remains of a male Mexican wearing blue shorts and a blue shirt.

He's also lying on the west walk way right outside the double doors of the restaurant area.

They have a pathway over through here?

Okay.

[man mumbles]

I looked over and I saw MacDonald uniform.

Then I'm assuming that was Maggie where she fell and got shot a bunch of times there...

that was the worst part...

of everything in seeing her.

I'll never forget what she looked like.

I was the lieutenant and SWAT Commander in San Ysidro in July, 1984.

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

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

you've got it in right at the border...

in rush hour traffic...

when the lights on those window, so you can't see through when you have a mad man 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 did or already done...

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

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.

It is, the top brass on the police department was having a work shop and mission bay.

I was facilitating that.

I didn't know my beeper never went off.

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

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

I don't know, this is 1984, we're not talking about the technology we have now.

No, it's not fair to say that.

I learned more that day about disasters than what I have learned in everything since.

No matter how well you perform, when 21 people died, there's simply no way to say I'm sorry.

-Keys? -Yes.

I don't know that.

I would think Daniel Munoz man-made that up...

I don't know that, I've never heard of that before.

They printed some articles when I was running for protocol office...

they were obviously hit articles that weren't based on fact or based on emotion...

or just what they want it to be based on.

Well, I don't have a clue.

What exactly was that social function you were at?

I was told that it might've even been a mini-party...

I know, so it was a workshop that the chiefs put on...

I was asked to help facilitate it because I was a lieutenant in field operation...

also the SWAT Commander.

There were some type of strategic planning going on...

it certainly wasn't a party of any type.

I would imagine we held those probably two to three times a year...

and you don't drink during the work day.

Not that I'd recall.

Were you drinking?

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.

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

I think I got my notification about 4:34, 4:35, jump right on the freeway...

but it was rush hour traffic.

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

I don't think they were deliberately made.

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

to have called off the "green light", allowing sniper to go ahead and take a shot.

But he was far away, he didn't know what he had...

and as a SWAT Commander, he needed to know what he had.

The "green light" is simply a term of art...

and I don't think a lot of people understood that.

With the red light, it simply means you can't take a shot...

if the person is not presenting any danger...

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've shot any time he saw and he would have.

[Foster] Not having the "green light" doesn't mean I 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.

You bet.

You bet.

You bet, nobody knew this guy was just by himself...

and just arbitrarily shooting people.

That's to my knowledge.

You could see him moving around you could see the shadow...

we figured and we actually saw him moving and reloading...

and firing into the people and firing outside...

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 right back in there.

Yeah, I saw several people get shot.

We arrived shortly after the incident began the scene was one of to absolute confusion.

Shots were ringing out, the nightmare was unfolding.

I saw one old woman carrying, look like a child, get shot in the back.

The woman and the child fall and he started to shoot into, look like a lot of people.

but all I could see was window and some signs, MacDonald's arches...

it was really tough to see through the glass, but it was clear what was going on there.

Inside, inside.

[Jerry] 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 happened rather other than possibly a robbery gone bad.

And for some reason, the shooter was still inside and shooting at the cops...

shooting at the fireman...

but not killing off anybody inside that he could.

What's the greater risk here, intervening and killing innocent people...

or having some mad man just firing away?

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

having someone firing in three different weapons...

so you think there were three different suspects.

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

[Foster] 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...

till them shoot hostages.

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

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

The suspect, 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 would be killed in the first couple minutes.

I said the majority.

No, that never happened.

I can't speak for them.

When Albert got shot, he was hiding and got discovered that wasn't until half-way into it.

And he was with three or four other people, they all run, and couple of them died...

and other ones got shot, so that wasn't the first ten minutes.

No, I think they did shoot a lot of people in the beginning...

but I don't think that the majority is killed in the first ten minutes...

some of them were shot and not dead...

EMT could came in and save them.

if they'd have access to some in to the building, so they laid there and he would get bored...

he would re-shoot people.

He should be angry at 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.

I believe that from the witness statements and from the things people told us...

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 there for ten maybe fifteen minutes.

But beyond that point, he was concentrating his firing and his efforts on police officers.

According to the quarters office, 13 of the deceased victims inside...

would have died almost immediately when they were shot.

Several others could've survived for a few minutes...

but probably not a long time, so again, who knows? It's pure speculation at this point.

The 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...

so that was their first thought was to save life and protect life.

How did you ID some of the bodies?

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

the bodies were there for quite some time.

The [illegible] people took Polaroids of all of the victims that were there.

And we set up an auditorium with a short distance away from MacDonald'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 these pictures to the audience...

because obviously these kids don't carry ID in their pocket as an adult would.

So when I held these photographs up and my partner did...

we would see people that would immediately be effected in the crowd...

that would recognize that was one of their loved ones.

We would have to contact that either person, individual or groups...

and they would be crying and emotional and we would get crying...

and emotional ourselves.

And we would have to get the information.

That probably is the most outstanding thing in my mind of this whole situation...

other than the sorrow and the heartbreak that took place to all the people in the community.

We really did 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 and a 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 aid...

that's kind of that profile and varying respects.

It's the busiest border crossing in the world.

Imagine the millions of stories that can be told, good, bad and different...

San Ysidro is the [illegible] 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, it can be so fluid.

The city of San Diego, the city of fathers made a conscious decision...

that we need to be on top of that.

That needs to be within the in-cooperated jurisdiction that we can govern, police and serve.

San Ysidro is a wonderful area, but it's been forgotten in margin lies...

and is unrepresented forever.

They don't think San Ysidro gets it to do.

They just wanted the border area.

So they annexed the city. San Diego annexed it.

But the community's misunderstood and under-served.

Hmm.

Yes, I do.

I think the thing is when I said it, 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 of what was going on.

We didn't have the training of today like they do now.

Things police officer do now are totally different from what we did back then.

I think the biggest thing over the years is...

that it made us aware of the actual shooter situation...

no longer we're just gonna surround and contain, we need to get in there...

or a police officer needs to get in there and take some kind of action...

when there is an active shooter going on.

You get paid to save life, that's what you gotta do.

Police officers know that they are gonna risk their lives sometimes.

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

and have this guy armed with a Uzi.

It made me aware of the weaponry that's out there...

and the dangers the police officers face...

and the public as well.

Obviously the model has changed.

Now when we have active shooters, we'd respond and go inside...

go wherever the active shooter is and until he put the threat down.

That's how we do business now.

Because we have so many mass shootings all over the world apart to the United States.

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

We expand the training, we went to a full-time SWAT team, it's called SRT.

All they did was SWAT duties.

They have take-on vehicles, they were completely prepared all the time.

We learn from all these incidents.

Better tactics, newer tactics, things like the robots...

We know hover on fleet of helicopters...

have different frequency just for SWAT, different radios...

much better capabilities and all of that.

I think the training picked up fairly dramatically after that.

So why do the shootings still continue today and are there any preventive measures?

Well, we still have deranged people.

Somebody who has mental instability as family said he did...

and he told them he's gone 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.

She asked for me by name.

In the newsroom, call the newsroom.

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".

I sat down with her...

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

tell me about what was going on in his head just the days prior to the shooting.

And how he was very calm about everything else, but he was very much anti-immigrant.

He really did not like immigrants.

He hated immigrants, especially Mexican immigrants.

The wife told me this in the interview.

On the morning of the San Ysidro shooting...

had about 180 to 200 people for minor traffic violations...

His check in time 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 nose about reducing fines.

He indicated us that he was from Ohio and only been here for a couple of months...

didn't realize that there was a violation.

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

I ended up suspending him a 75-dollar fine.

He exited the courtroom...

had his wife and daughter with him.

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

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

Certainly, with this play of guilty, with the exclamation...

he had the patience to wait all morning.

He didn't, even with that three and a half hour wait, between signing in...

appearance and making the exclamation...

he didn't appear the least bit of upset.

They left there, they went to a MacDonald's restaurant...

it's basically right across the street from the court house, and had a meal.

And then on the way back to San Ysidro, he made a snap decision to go to the zoo.

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

the suspect said to his wife, "Well, society had his chance".

She thought that was a little loud, 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 some time 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 these weapons with him when he went to court...

when he went to the MacDonald's in Claremont.

He may have gone in there, seen a lot of people in that restaurant...

maybe this helped set him off.

I think that might be a good thing...

because they're looking for fame and go down in history as the mass murderer, whatever.

I respect you for not putting their name in there.

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

After I survived the massacre, I was recovering.

I had some sleeping problems where I had nightmares.

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

I couldn't save the baby, the woman, 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 2:30 in the morning...

and I came upon a burning vehicle, I just thought it was a burning vehicle...

I didn't think anyone was inside the vehicle, it was about two in the morning.

nobody was out on the freeway.

I pulled over, when I got to the vehicle, I heard someone yelling and screaming from the vehicle.

So I approached the vehicle completely engulfed and I just went into action...

I broke the window, I reached him, I grabbed him, I yanked him out of the vehicle.

I was able to save his life, even though he was burnt about 70 percent of his body.

He ended up falling asleep behind the vehicle after working roughly 18 hours as a painter.

His vehicle rolled over a couple of times and caught fire.

He was trapped in vehicle, I just happened to come at the right time...

I just thought I saved someone's life, I had a second chance.

That is the reason why I'm here, the reason why I'm a police officer...

God gave me that opportunity where I didn't freeze...

and I was finally able to come through and save someone.

Yes, I think we 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.

Right.

My mom has an album...

of all the cards that people sent her...

about me...

like, get well...

She has checks that people sent.

But she never cashed.

But they were small checks, like ten dollars, five dollars she has.

People supported us a lot.

We appreciate that.

I read every card.

Why?

What were you thinking?

We'd always ride our bikes all over San Ysidro at the time.

It's back when you can do that.

So we get on our bikes and ride, mostly we did that after school.

I came back from work at 5:00 or 5:30, I didn't know anything about it.

They said, "did you hear about San Ysidro", I turned on and I was in total shock.

I was glued to the television, about an hour or so later...

the principle called just heard about Omarr.

All kinds of feelings that made my mind through, my goodness, feeling guilty...

I can't sit in here like they're alive...

so I did go right down the next morning...

just saying sorry to his mom, I just felt I had to, I couldn't stay at home.

A lot of people told me that the shooter hated Mexican people, what do you think of that?

It was our 9/11.

I remember the days after, people were stunned and shocked.

We treated each other more respectfully.

Everybody held doors for each other, people merge on the roads.

I think the Southwestern College perhaps was a little bit of redemption for our community.

People maybe turn a horrific thing into something positive.

I had something inside of me that was telling me...

Many times, I had premonition of that...

many times I would...

wonder what my brother did...

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?"

Honestly, I was ready for it.

I'm scared of those premonition now.

I would just hold him...

hold him...

when he was sleeping...

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 as well as in his...

he's okay, he's with my uncle and my grandparents...

saying it's good.

you've not come here yet, you will eventually, but...

save me a spot in Heaven.

Every time I step on the campus, I remember the day that I was sitting in my living room...

watching the events of this attack unfold.

What I have to do is push myself through these 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 afterward, I was a different kid.

You know, I didn't want to hang out with my friends any more.

I became very aggressive.

I was very unhappy and carried guilt.

I didn't realize it, but I carry guilt.

Ronald Carrio're also critically hurt from this was taken to the trauma center...

for initial evaluation.

I think about what he would be like today...

and what our relationship would be like today.

Matteo was a lot like Blyth and Ron...

in fact, he was just gentle and kind.

He was a really good artist.

We just had this connection.

We love the same things, we lover Star Wars.

We loved music. I used to be just mesmerized by his ability to draw.

People would say, "God, it was ready to take him home"...

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

I don't really understand what happened.

And why they are gone.

No, no.

I wouldn't be able to live. When I used to think about it everyday...

it hindered my entire life.

What I saw, where I went, how I acted and everything...

it was all around that, like my safety.

I was so intimidated by loud noises or abrupt people or screaming crowds...

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 eight months.

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

she probably would have had 12 kids...

because Jackie love kids.

Jackie was full of life. Jackie wanted more kids and that was her main intention.

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

Jackie, we were gonna dress her in her pink dress she had, but we couldn't...

because she was all destroyed, she had no more neck or anything...

The baby 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...

she lost the strength.

Imelda, too, 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.

That I know she is 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...

compare to the rest of the city...

there was a time delay in getting a lot of the officers here...

within the first 19 minutes containment, which means we got it surrounded...

we were controlling the situation inside the restaurant.

Within 19 minutes, that was accomplished with officers' present, okay?

The people, by the time you guys got there, you guys shot him...

you guys went in to try to save her.

They were all bled to death, because the people that did survive, they came to us...

they told us they were still alive but they were bled to death.

You can bleed to death in seconds or minutes or hours...

it depends on the wounds and the injuries...

The people that have 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've gone in sooner, or killed him sooner...

then people would've survived.

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

the officers didn't know how many people were in there...

and how many people were shooting...

because I heard three separate weapons being fired.

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

Questions always come up were why didn't we put gas in there...

what would happen if you threw a tear gas grenade in...

with a bunch of people that were still alive, and there's victims...

probably would be in total panic...

probably jump up and run around.

They would end up as additional victims...

because they would be putting themselves in harmed way.

I've learned that time doesn't stop.

Because if you don't keep moving and you don't keep healing...

you're always gonna be bitter, you're always gonna be upset, you're always gonna try to hide.

And I'm not.

I have to move forward.

And I have to value things now differently...

and move on, move on with my life.

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

My youngest daughter found some information relating to it in my book case...

and asked me about it about a month ago.

And I probably hadn't thought about it for years since.

Do I feel I got away with something?

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

given the circumstances.

The SWAT team and the police showed great guts that day.

They were under fire constantly, they didn't indiscriminately start sprang the building...

which would be then stinged a lot of people.

They withheld their fire five rounds that were fired by police officers...

none of them injured anybody.

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

And there's not always a normal reason...

you do the best you possible can under the circumstances...

and you feel bad for survivors.

I would just give them the advice that...

give your troubles to God.

And he will help you get through it, he'll always give you more than you can take.

I know that.

I'm sorry.

I couldn't help.