Ronald Reagan was shot on March 30, 1981, in front of the Washington Hilton Hotel, after giving a speech at an AFL-CIO meeting.
Gunman John Hinckley Jr. fired a .22-caliber long rifle bullet that ricocheted off the presidential limousine and struck Reagan in the torso, puncturing his lung and causing severe internal bleeding.
Hinckley fired six shots as Reagan left the hotel. James Brady, White House press secretary; Timothy McCarthy, a Secret Service agent; and Thomas Delahanty, a police officer, were also injured.
Ronald Reagan was seriously injured on March 30, 1981, when Hinckley attempted to assassinate him.
Chaos surrounds the shooting victims immediately following the attempted assassination of President Reagan, on March 30, 1981, by John Hinckley Jr. outside the Hilton Hotel in DC.
The attempted murder was a desperate and misguided attempt by Hinckley to “impress” actress Jodie Foster.
Hinckley was desperate to impress actress Jodie Foster after seeing her in the 1976 film Taxi Driver.
Hinckley came from a wealthy family. His father, Jack Hinckley, who died in 2008, was president of Vanderbilt Energy Corporation.
He moved to Los Angeles to become a songwriter and wrote letters to his parents talking about how he had found love with a woman named Lynn Collins, who turned out to be a figment of his imagination.
After Foster enrolled at Yale in 1980, Hinckley moved to New Haven, Connecticut. He enrolled in writing classes to be near her and pushed notes under her bedroom door.
When she didn’t reciprocate, he decided to make a grand gesture: commit suicide in front of her, hijack a plane, or kill the president.
He decided on the latter and began to see how he could get close enough to Jimmy Carter to carry out his deadly attack.
He followed the Democrat around the country and was arrested on firearms charges in Nashville, but never got a chance to perform.
By the time he had a plan, Carter was already outside the White House and Republican Reagan was inside.
Shortly before shooting the president, he sent a note to Foster.
It said: ‘Over the last seven months I have left you dozens of poems, letters and love messages in the faint hope that you might develop an interest in me.
‘Although we spoke on the phone a couple of times, I never had the nerve to just walk up to you and introduce myself… The reason I’m going ahead with this attempt now is because I can’t wait any longer to impress you. -John Hinckley Jr.’
Press secretary James Brady and agent Timothy McCarthy were injured in the assassination attempt on Reagan. The aftermath of the shooting is seen above.
Reagan was rushed to George Washington University Hospital, which was just over a mile away, and had been routinely examined by the Secret Service as a possible emergency treatment site for the president.
Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where presidents routinely receive medical care, is about nine miles from downtown DC.
Reagan underwent emergency surgery.
Despite the severity of his injuries, Reagan was eager to show that he was recovering, receiving visitors and signing a bill the morning after the shooting.
He remained hospitalized at GWU Hospital for 12 days and returned to the White House on April 11, 1981.
Hinckley’s lawyers argued that he was “no longer a threat” and should not be subjected to a series of court-imposed restrictions that were implemented after he was released from a 35-year sentence at a Washington psychiatric hospital in 2016.
Hinckley was allowed to move into a gated community in Virginia with his elderly mother while he followed a series of stipulations set by the court and was subject to constant supervision by doctors and therapists.
In 2022 he became a completely free man.