I have no choice but to resign myself to the fact of Hinckley’s release, announced earlier today, but I’m not at all comfortable with the decision. Doctors now believe he has been cured of his mental illness. He is profoundly sorry for what he did 35 years ago and he wishes he could take back that day, but he can’t.
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Hinckley Jr., the man who shot President Ronald Reagan in 1981, will be released from a government psychiatric hospital over 35 years after the assassination attempt, a USA federal judge ruled on Wednesday. His father died in 2008. Like her father, she wrote, “I too believe in forgiveness”. “But forgiving someone in your heart doesn’t meant that you let them loose in Virginia to pursue whatever dark agendas they may still hold dear”. He said he wants to “fit in” and be “a good citizen”.
Hinckley is restricted to a 50-mile radius of Williamsburg and must make information about his mobile phone, vehicle and Internet browsing history available to his treatment team and law enforcement. However, In Hinckley’s 1982 trial a jury returned a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity on all charges.
For the first six months, Hinckley will visit the Forensic Outpatient Department of St. Elizabeths in D.C. for psychotherapy at least once per month. Before he was appointed to that position in 1985, he served as counselor to the president and sat on the National Security Council.
According to the report, the judge presiding over the case said Mr. Hinckley’s depression and psychotic disorder are in full remission and have been for more than 20 years.
One of the other people John Hinckley shot outside a Washington hotel in 1981 was secret service agent Tim McCarthy, who is now police chief in suburban Orland Park. Brady became an advocate for gun control and the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence used Hinckley’s release to renew its call for universal background checks for gun purchases. He is barred from talking to the media.
He is also prohibited from “knowingly travel” to locations near current presidents, vice presidents, or other high-level political figures, and he has several digital media restrictions as well.
Hinckley also followed President Jimmy Carter for years.
“The court finds by the preponderance of the evidence that Mr Hinckley will not be a danger to himself or to others if released on full-time convalescent leave to Williamsburg under the conditions proposed”.
John Hinckley was obsessed with the movie “Taxi Driver” and thought that killing the president would impress the actress Jodi Foster.
The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute said in a statement Wednesday that it “strongly” opposed Hinckley’s release. The person arrested as a suspect in the shooting has been identified as John Hinckley Jr. of Evergreen, Colo.
Mr Reagan was shot outside a Washington hotel in March 1981, as he waved to a crowd and entered a limousine.
Hinckley already has been staying at his mother’s home in a gated community on a golf course during monthly furlough visits. “He’s done his time and he has to live somewhere”.
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Instead of going to prison, Hinckley was ordered to treatment at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, D.C.
