Court Upholds Ban Against Massacre Suit

SAN FRANCISCO —  The state Supreme Court has refused to reinstate a suit seeking to blame the City of San Diego and its police for the slaughter at a McDonald’s restaurant in San Ysidro that left 22 people dead.

The justices voted Wednesday to deny a hearing on an appeal of lower-court rulings dismissing the suit filed by survivors and relatives of victims of the July 18, 1984, shootings.

Berserk gunman James Huberty killed 21 people and wounded several others in random shootings inside the restaurant before he was shot to death by police.

The suit against the city, former Mayor Roger Hedgecock and Police Chief Bill Kolender contended that police acted negligently in responding to the situation because of faulty hiring, training or supervision, and so were partly responsible for the deaths and injuries.

The suit said police arrived on the scene four minutes after Huberty started shooting but waited improperly for more than an hour before starting an operation to “neutralize” the gunman and rescue the victims.

In a ruling upholding dismissal of the suit by San Diego Superior Court Judge Mack Lovett, the 4th District Court of Appeal said neither the police nor the city could be held legally responsible.

Police are liable for failing to protect victims only when officers have said or done something to cause the victims to rely on them, and then by negligence increase the danger to the victims, the court said.

In this case, “the police can in no way be charged with lulling Huberty’s victims into a false sense of security, nor can the alleged inaction by police reasonably be said to have increased the risk of harm to which the victims were subject,” said Justice Howard Wiener, writing for a unanimous three-member panel.