John Hinckley, Jr.
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John Warnock Hinckley, Jr. (born May 29, 1955) attempted to assassinate U.S. President Ronald Reagan on March 30, 1981. Hinckley claimed he had repeatedly watched the 1976 movie Taxi Driver, in which a disturbed man plots to assassinate a presidential candidate. Hinckley had developed an obsession with actress Jodie Foster, stalking her and developing ploys to gain her attention. He fired a Rohm RG-14 revolver six times at Reagan as he left the Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C. — Reagan was not hit directly, but a ricocheted bullet struck him in the left lung. Hinckley severely injured Press Secretary James Brady and wounded police officer Thomas Delehanty and Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy. Hinckley was tried and found not guilty by reason of insanity, and has spent his subsequent years confined to Saint Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, D.C.
On December 30, 2005, a federal judge ruled that Hinckley would be allowed visits, supervised by his parents, to their home outside of Washington, D.C. The judge ruled that Mr. Hinckley could have up to three visits of three nights and then four visits of four nights, each depending on the successful completion of the last. All of the experts testifying at Mr. Hinckley's 2005 conditional release hearing, including the government experts, agreed that his depression and psychotic disorder are in full remission and that he should have some expanded conditions of release.
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[edit] Biography
John Hinckley Jr. was born on May 29, 1955 in Ardmore, Oklahoma, and grew up in Texas. He went to Highland Park High School in Dallas County, Texas. The family, owners of the Hinckley Oil company, later moved to Colorado. An off-and-on student at Texas Tech University from 1973 to 1980, in 1976 he headed to Los Angeles in hopes of becoming a songwriter. These efforts were unsuccessful, and his letters home to his parents were full of tales of misfortune and pleas for money. He also spoke of a girlfriend, Lynn Collins, who turned out to be a complete fabrication. He returned home to his parents' house in Evergreen, Colorado, before the year was out. Over the next few years he developed a pattern of living on his own for a while and then returning home broke.
[edit] Obsession with Jodie Foster
After repeated viewings of the 1976 movie Taxi Driver, in which a disturbed protagonist Travis Bickle (inspired by another aspiring assassin, Arthur Herman Bremer), played by Robert DeNiro, plots to assassinate a presidential candidate, Hinckley developed an obsession with actress Jodie Foster, who played a child prostitute in the film. When Foster entered Yale University, Hinckley moved to New Haven, Connecticut for a short time to be nearer to her, slipping poems and messages under her door and repeatedly contacting her by telephone.
Failing to develop any meaningful contact with Foster, Hinckley developed such plots as hijacking an airplane and committing suicide in front of her in order to gain her attention. Eventually he settled on a scheme to win her over by assassinating the president, on the theory that as a historical figure, he would be her equal. To this end, he trailed then-president Jimmy Carter from state to state, but was arrested in Nashville, Tennessee on a firearms charge. Penniless, he returned home once again, and despite psychiatric treatment for depression, his mental health did not improve. In 1981, he began to target the newly elected president, Ronald Reagan. It was also at this time that he started collecting information on Lee Harvey Oswald, John F. Kennedy's assassin, whom he saw as a role model.
Just prior to Hinckley's failed attempt on Reagan's life, he wrote to Foster:
Over the past seven months I've left you dozens of poems, letters and love messages in the faint hope that you could develop an interest in me. Although we talked on the phone a couple of times I never had the nerve to simply approach you and introduce myself. [...] the reason I'm going ahead with this attempt now is because I cannot wait any longer to impress you.
[edit] Assassination attempt
On March 30, 1981, Hinckley fired a Rohm RG-14 revolver six times at Reagan as he left the Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C. after addressing an AFL-CIO conference. Hinckley wounded Press Secretary James Brady, police officer Thomas Delehanty, and Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy. President Reagan was missed but became seriously wounded when a bullet that bounced back from the bulletproof glass of the presidential limousine hit him in the chest. Hinckley did not attempt to flee and was arrested at the scene. Reagan survived his wound after surgery at George Washington University Hospital. McCarthy and Delahanty were not seriously injured and recovered. Brady had a bullet lodged in his brain and was permanently disabled. The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, which required five-day waiting period and background check to purchase a handgun, was named after him.
[edit] Trial
At the trial in 1982, charged with thirteen offenses, Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity on June 21. The defense psychiatric reports found him to be insane while the prosecution reports declared him legally sane.
Hinckley was confined at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington, D.C. He was allowed to leave the hospital for supervised visits to his parents in 1999 and longer, unsupervised releases in 2000. These privileges were revoked when he was found to have smuggled materials about Foster back into the hospital. Hinckley was later allowed supervised visits in 2004 and 2005. Court hearings were held in September 2005 on whether he could have expanded privileges to leave the hospital. Some of the testimony during the hearings centered on whether Hinckley is capable of having a normal relationship with a woman and, if not, whether that would have any bearing on what danger he would pose to society.
When reporters asked Hinckley's attorney Vincent Fuller to elaborate about his victory over the federal government he said, "Another day, another dollar."[citation needed]
Fuller died of lung cancer in 2006.
[edit] Reaction to verdict
The verdict led to widespread dismay; as a result, the U.S. Congress and a number of states re-wrote the law regarding the insanity defense. Idaho, Kansas, Montana, and Utah have abolished the defense altogether. In the United States prior to the Hinckley case, the insanity defense had been used in less than 2% of all capital cases and was unsuccessful in almost 80% of the trials in which it was used.
[edit] Cultural references
Hinckley is one of the assassins portrayed in Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman's musical Assassins, in which he sings a folk ballad, "Unworthy of Your Love", professing his love to Foster. The song is a duet with Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme who was cult leader Charles Manson's most loyal disciple. Lynette Fromme had herself previously failed to assassinate U.S. President Gerald Ford. There is also a band called JFA (Jodie Foster's Army), a song by the band Crucifucks named "Hinckley Had A Vision", and a song by Pittsburgh punk band Caustic Christ called "Doesn't Anyone Want to Impress Jodie Foster Anymore?" Also, Canadian anarcho-punk band Rebel Spell mentions him in a song about Mark David Chapman, John Lennon, and a conspiracy theory that posits that Chapman murdered the ex-Beatle on orders from the the C.I.A., called "December 1980"; one of the lyrics is "John Hinkley Jr. My hero. Shoot straight, next time shoot straight." The 1980s hardcore punk band Ism recorded a song entitled "John Hinckley Jr. (What Has Jodie Foster Done To You?)" on The Big Apple Rotten To The Core hardcore punk compilation. It includes the lyrics: "First Lincoln, then Kennedy, but Reagan got away/So you stood near the Hilton/With a gun in your hand/Waiting for Reagan/Even the mentally ill can calculate and premeditate plans."
In the Family Guy episode "Model Misbehavior," Hinckley fires the gun to start a boat race, and then Foster shows up saying that she was impressed by the way he fired the gun and maybe she has changed her view of him, as well as of all men.
In the Seinfeld episode "The Pitch," Jerry Seinfeld remarks, "Give my best to Hinckley," after having an odd conversation with "Crazy" Joe Davola.
A song called "I Desire" appears on Devo's fifth album, Oh No It's Devo, which features lyrics by and based upon John Hinckley's songs to Jodie Foster.
One New Jersey metal/hardcore group even named themselves John Hinckley.
A short film entitled "Dear Jodie" chronicles the events leading up to the assassination attempt on Reagan. Made by New York University (NYU) student D.C. Marcial in 2006, the movie will soon be shown in several film festivals. [1]
A character in Richard Linklater's 1991 independent film Slacker is said to "look like John Hinckley". The character is a disgruntled graduate student who holds his thesis committee hostage.
