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.
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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, 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[1]. 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 alleged assassin, whom he saw as a role model.
Just prior to Hinckley's failed attempt on Reagan's life, he wrote to Foster[2]:
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] Reported Hinckley family connections
According to the March 31, 1981, edition of the Houston Post, and reported by AP, UPI, NBC News and Newsweek, Hinckley is the son of one of George H.W. Bush's better supporters in his 1980 presidential primary campaign against Ronald Reagan; John Hinckley Sr.'s Vanderbilt Energy had been threatened with a $2 million fine the morning of the assassination attempt. John Jr.'s older brother, Scott Hinckley, and Neil Bush had a dinner appointment scheduled for the next day.[1]
Associated Press published the following short note on March 31, 1981:
The family of the man charged with trying to assassinate President Reagan is acquainted with the family of Vice President George Bush and had made large contributions to his political campaign....Scott Hinckley, brother of John W. Hinckley Jr. who allegedly shot at Reagan, was to have dined tonight in Denver at the home of Neil Bush, one of the Vice President's sons....The Houston Post said it was unable to reach Scott Hinckley, vice president of his father's Denver-based firm, Vanderbilt Energy Corp., for comment. Neil Bush lives in Denver, where he works for Standard Oil Co. of Indiana. In 1978, Neil Bush served as campaign manager for his brother, George W. Bush, the Vice President's eldest son, who made an unsuccessful bid for Congress. Neil lived in Lubbock, Texas, throughout much of 1978, where John Hinckley lived from 1974 through 1980.
[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."[2]
[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[3]. 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.[citation needed]
[edit] Current status
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.
[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.
Hinkley had a copy of Catcher in the Rye on him at the time of his assassination attempt. He is said to have been influenced by Mark Chapman.(Killer Of John Lennon
Hinckley is mentioned in the film Six Degrees of Separation in a monologue on Catcher in the Rye.
There is 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 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." The song was later released on the Ism debut LP A Diet For The Worms which soared to #65 on Progressive radio charts.
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.
In an episode of "Gilmore Girls", Luke Dane says, "and they told me to start writing letters to Jodie Foster!".
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 named themselves John Hinckley.
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.
In the American Dad episode "The Best Christmas Story Never," Stan is taken back in time to the 1970s where he convinces Martin Scorsese to quit drugs which results in Taxi Driver never being made. This results in an alternate future in which John Hinckley never attempts to assassinate Ronald Reagan, and Walter Mondale becomes President of the United States and soon after hands over power to Soviets.
The 1980's Wall of Voodoo hit Far Side of Crazy is sung from the point of view of John Hinckley Jr. and incorporates Hinckley's poetry as well as lines such as "I shot an actor for an actress who lived to tell a joke."
The song "Hey Judas" on Carmaig de Forest's album "I Shall Be Released", a condemnation of Reagan, contains the line "John, you did a bad thing when you missed."
[edit] References
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ Taxi Driver: Its Influence on John Hinckley, Jr.
- ^ Letter written to Jodie Foster by John Hinckley Jr., March 30, 1981
- ^ The John Hinckley Trial & Its Effect on the Insanity Defense by Kimberly Collins, Gabe Hinkebein, and Staci Schorgl
