President Ronald Reagan waves to onlookers moments before an assassination attempt by John Hinckley Jr., March 30, 1981, by the Washington Hilton in Washington, D.C.James Brady is visible third from the left.
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U.S. District Court Judge Paul Friedman has declared the would-be assassin poses no threat to the public and can live with his mother full-time from 5 August (16), according to The Washington Post.
John Hinckley Jr. has already been living with his 90-year-old mother at her home overlooking a golf course in Williamsburg, Virginia, for 17 days each month.
Mr Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity but was sent for treatment to a Washington hospital.
“Hinckley, Jr. was a profoundly troubled twenty-five-year-old young man suffering from active and acute psychosis and major depression”, Friedman writes, explaining the condition resulted in a deep obsession with Foster and the film Taxi Driver. He enjoys painting and photography and cares for feral cats. On two visits in 2011, Hinckley skipped a movie he was supposed to see and instead went to a bookstore and a fast-food restaurant, lying afterward to hospital staff about where he had been. After having received the “maximum benefits possible in the in-patient setting” – a phrase sure to rankle the victims and their families – Friedman says it’s time to let Hinckley out on supervised “convalescent leave”.
He connected with a local chapter of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, where he has befriended others with psychiatric illness.
Some of his mother’s neighbors have always been wary of Hinckley. He will also be required to work or volunteer three times a week and participate in individual music therapy sessions at least once a month in Williamsburg. He spent the past 35 years at the psychiatric establishment, St. Elizabeth’s, where in his first year there he had tried to commit suicide. He can drive alone, but only within a 30-mile radius of Williamsburg, and the Secret Service will periodically follow him. He will be going to live with his mother. He has been housed at a mental hospital since his trial, but could be released as soon as next week.
The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute also weighed in on the recent ruling on Wednesday. After that, he can live in a seperate home alone or with roommates provided that members of his treatment team approve.
The release could happen as early as next week, the judge ruled.
Reagan (1911-2004) suffered a punctured lung and was hospitalised, but he made a full recovery after surgery. Reagan survived being hit in the chest, but Brady was paralyzed after he was shot in the head – a trauma that prompted him to found the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.
Reagan’s daughter Patti Davis has previously opposed letting Hinckley spend more time outside the hospital. “If approached by media, Mr. Hinckley and the members of his family will decline to speak with them, and if the media persists, Mr. Hinckley and the members of his family will withdraw”, the order says.
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CCTV America’s Jessica Stone reports.
