“It was an act caused by mental illness”. He says “the mental health system and the judicial system worked and worked well”.
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Spriggs spent almost three decades with the Secret Service.
He must live with his mother in Williamsburg for the first-year of his full-time release and after that, following an assessment by his team, he may reside alone or with roommates within a 30 mile radius of Williamsburg.
John W. Hinckley, Jr., will be released from a government psychiatric hospital more than 35 years after he attempted to assassinate president Ronald Reagan and shot three others outside the Washington Hilton on March 30, 1981, a federal judge ruled Wednesday. He now works as vice president of global security for The AP.
Mr Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity but was sent for treatment to a Washington hospital.
Hinckley, 61, no longer poses a danger to himself or others and will be freed to live full-time with his mother in Williamsburg, Va., effective as soon as August 5 subject to dozens of temporary treatment and monitoring conditions, U.S. District Judge Paul L Friedman of Washington wrote.
Speaking to reporters in Florida, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said, “John Hinckley should not have been released”.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump also called it a “mistake” to release Hinckley, whom he misidentified as “David Hinckley”.
While outside the hospital, Hinckley has had to comply with a series of restrictions, and some of those will continue. He must attend individual and group therapy sessions and is barred from talking to the media. The Secret Service also periodically follows him.
US District Judge Paul Friedman’s judgement points to medical assessments which showed that Mr Hinckley had had “no symptoms of active mental illness” since 1983.
Hinckley must return to Washington once a month for doctors to check on his mental state and his compliance with the conditions of his leave, the judge ruled.
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Hinckley said after the attack outside a Washington hotel that he wanted to kill Reagan to impress the actor Jodie Foster, with whom he became obsessed after seeing her in the movie “Taxi Driver”. That time has increased over the years so that for more than the last year he has been allowed to spend 17 days a month at the home, which is in a gated community and overlooks a golf course. There were many people who were skeptical that insanity was a legitimate defense after an assassination attempt on the American president. He will now live there full-time.
