A judge says Hinckley, who attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan will be allowed to leave a Washington mental hospital and live full-time in Virginia.
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Hinckley shot President Reagan outside of a hotel in Washington in 1981.
Hinckley has been diagnosed with an array of mental health issues, including schizophrenia and delusional disorder. Brady suffered brain damage and succumbed to his injuries in 2014. Hinckley had been permitted to make longer and longer visits to his mother’s home over the past several years, and a federal judge this summer ruled that he was no longer a threat to himself or others.
Hinckley will live with his 90-year-old mother in a gated community in Williamsburg, Virginia, about 250 kilometers southeast of the nation’s capital, under dozens of conditions.
As a 25-year-old college dropout, Hinckley had grown fixated upon Foster and the Martin Scorsese film “Taxi Driver”, in which she played a teenage prostitute.
Hinckley must remain within 50 miles of his mother’s home, and can not travel to any area where a current or former president, vice president or member of Congress is known to be.
He is ordered to have no contact with Foster, and the Reagan and Brady families.
Hinckley also wounded police officer Thomas Delahanty, Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy, and, most severely, press secretary James Brady. He will have to follow an extensive set of rules while in Williamsburg, but his long-time lawyer, Barry Levine, said Hinckley will be a “citizen about whom we can all be proud”. According to the Washington Post, Hinckley has already spent some time outside the Washington psychiatric hospital where he has resided for years, spending “more than half” of his days at his mother’s residence.
President Ford did survive attempts on his life at the hands of two different shooters, but no bullet ever hit him.
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He must meet with a doctor for psychiatric treatment at least twice per month, which can be reduce to once per month after 6 months. He must see a psychiatrist regularly and will be permitted to drive no further than 30 miles from the home unaccompanied – or 50 miles if accompanied.
