NEW YORK: Would-be presidential assassin John Hinckley Jr. was released from a psychiatric hospital on Saturday, reports said, 35 years after he shot US President Ronald Reagan in an attack prompted by a deranged obsession with actress Jodie Foster.
Hinckley, 61, is moving in with his elderly mother in a gated community in Williamsburg, Virginia, where he has been making increasingly long furlough visits in recent years under the watchful eyes of the US Secret Service.
A federal judge in July ordered Hinckley’s release from St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, finding that he no longer posed a danger to himself or to others. Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity at a 1982 trial and was diagnosed with depression and psychosis.
As a 25-year-old college dropout, Hinckley had grown fixated upon Foster and the Martin Scorsese film “Taxi Driver”. Inspired by the film’s main character, who plots to kill a presidential candidate, Hinckley opened fire on Reagan in a misguided effort to win Foster’s affections.
Reagan suffered a punctured lung but recovered quickly. His press secretary, James Brady, was left permanently disabled.
{{/usCountry}}Reagan suffered a punctured lung but recovered quickly. His press secretary, James Brady, was left permanently disabled.
{{/usCountry}}The shooting helped launch the modern gun control movement, and a bill later imposed background checks and a waiting period.