The man who tried to assassinate President Ronald Reagan has been released from a Washington mental hospital, more than 35 years after the shooting. But it’s not completely new to him, he has been making furlough visits here in recent years under the watchful eyes of Secret Service.
Advertisement
A federal judge ruled in July that the 61-year-old Hinckley is not a danger to himself or the public and can live full-time at his mother’s home in Williamsburg, Virginia.
Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity, prompting outrage and leading to changes in the legal requirements for insanity defenses. His doctors say he is in remission.
Local media, including The Washington Post, reported that Hinckley was officially released from St. Elizabeth’s on Saturday, when he had been scheduled to be freed.
Hinckley was gradually granted more freedom with Judge Friedman allowing him to spend longer stretches at his Williamsburg home.
Hinckley will have to work or volunteer at least three days a week.
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.
Reagan’s family and his presidential foundation have consistently opposed Hinckley’s release.
Brady died of complications from his injuries in 2014, though Reagan, D.C. police officer Thomas Delahanty and Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy all recovered from gunshot wounds suffered during the incident.
He had shot the president in an apparent bid to impress the actress Jodie Foster, with whom he had an obsession and whom he had subjected to what would now be termed stalking.
Advertisement
The shooting on March 30, 1981, helped galvanize opposition to the easy availability of handguns and led to the creation of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. “The consequences of his release should he relapse into madness could be quite catastrophic”, Ron Reagan Jr. said in a statement.
