The Crazed Gunman Who Shot Ronald Reagan Will Be a Free Man

freebeacon ^ | June 1, 2022 | Kevin Daley

[MarvinStinson]

Would-be assassin John Hinckley Jr. will go free June 15

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., has granted unconditional release to would-be assassin John Hinckley Jr., who in 1981 shot then-president Ronald Reagan and three others.

U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman approved Hinckley's unconditional release during a Wednesday morning hearing and wished the gunman well, according to reporters on hand for the proceedings. Though the threat to the then-president's life was downplayed at the time, the shooting nearly killed Reagan and left two others with permanent injuries.

Wednesday's release order captures the sharp pro-defendant turn of many courts at a time of skyrocketing violent crime. Friedman and lawyers for both sides said Wednesday that Hinckley's case was a model for mental health alternatives in criminal justice. Such approaches are championed by liberals who say social programs and counseling are a better treatment for crime than prison.

The would-be assassin commands an impressive pro-bono legal team comprised of attorneys from four different law firms, including heavy hitters Blank Rome LLP and Cozen O'Connor. Friedman, a Clinton appointee, in 1987 left a lucrative perch in private practice to join the independent counsel conducting the Iran-Contra investigation. The seven-year, $40 million probe failed to obtain a single lasting conviction

Justice Department prosecutors at Wednesday morning's hearing did not oppose Hinckley's release. Hinckley has been in the care of St. Elizabeth's psychiatric hospital since a jury in 1982 found him not guilty by reason of insanity.

Hinckley has been on convalescent leave from St. Elizabeth's and living in Williamsburg, Va., since 2016. He resided with his mother until her death in September. A psychologist retained by prosecutors warned that his mother's death could be a destabilizing event for Hinckley and noted that the gunman has not lived alone in the 40 years since he shot Reagan.

Authorities at the Department of Behavioral Health took a different view and recommended Hinckley's unconditional release. The department has for years on a regular basis produced reports on Hinckley's mental state and compliance with release conditions.

"Those reports have consistently indicated that Mr. Hinckley has been compliant with all the conditions of his release and has remained mentally stable and asymptomatic for mental disease," Friedman wrote in a September order.

Reagan nearly died of the injuries he sustained in the attack. Three others were wounded—White House press secretary James Brady was paralyzed and used a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Washington police officer Thomas Delahanty retired from the force due to lasting nerve damage. Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy, who put himself in the line of fire to protect the president, was shot in the stomach but survived the deadly encounter.

The release is effective as of June 15.

[Lazamataz]

I’m going to send him a text:

“Joe Biden is sleeping with Jody Foster”

[laplata]

Lol

“Joe Biden says ‘You can watch me and Jodi Foster do it”.

[Mr. Blond]

I thought Reagan closed all the mental hospitals?

[DallasBiff]

I heard a rumor(urban legend) that Jeb Bush knew Hincley.

[nickcarraway]

Most presidential assassins only made it a few months,including the one who tried to kill FDR.

[MarvinStinson]

U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman denounces Trump, frees Hinckley

"Those reports have consistently indicated that Mr. Hinckley has been compliant with all the conditions of his release and has remained mentally stable and asymptomatic for mental disease," Judge Friedman wrote in a September order.

'This Is Not Normal': US Judge Denounces Trump's Attacks on Judiciary

https://www.law.com/nationallawjournal/2019/11/07/this-is-not-normal-us-judge-denounces-trumps-attacks-on-judiciary/?slreturn=20220502015023

[minnesota_bound]

Gosh I hope Sirhan Sirhan is freed soon.

[Mark17]

I am sure the democrats are rejoicing.

[Dr. Franklin]

I heard a rumor(urban legend) that Jeb Bush knew Hincley.

No, the story is that the Bushes and Hinckleys are distant cousins, the Hinkleys donated to the Bushs' political campaigns, and that Jeb's brother Neil was scheduled to have dinner with John Hickley's brother Scott Hinckley the day after the day of the attempted assassination of Reagan.
Bush Son Had Dinner Plans With Hinckley Brother Before Shooting

[MarvinStinson]

What the surgeon who pulled John Hinckley’s bullet out of Ronald Reagan’s chest remembers

“The first thing I saw was just a man — who was in dire straits.”

BySasha Pezenik October 03, 2021
https://abcnews.go.com/US/surgeon-pulled-john-hinckleys-bullet-ronald-reagans-chest/story?id=80336979

With John Hinckley’s bullet still lodged in his chest, President Ronald Reagan was rushed to George Washington University Hospital, which is about nine minutes from the Hilton hotel where he’d been shot.

One of the surgeons who met him there was Dr. Benjamin Aaron, then chief of cardiothoracic surgery at GWU. Aaron would go on to remove what turned out to be an explosive “Devastator” bullet from the president — though they didn’t know that at the time.

It’s a decision that proved crucial, and now, four decades later, Aaron recounted those moments to ABC News as Hinckley is poised for a potential release from his remaining court-ordered restrictions by June of next year.

The president was losing a lot of blood, a handkerchief soaked through by the time he arrived at the hospital.

“The first thing I saw was just a man — who was in dire straits,” Aaron told ABC News. “He’d lost about 40% of his bloodline, enough to cause him to go unconscious for a time ... and he was not a young man.”

Reagan’s blood was a deep dark hue — less oxygenated — and a warning sign of the damage.

“The blood in this kind of injury would almost always be bright red, and the blood we saw draining out of his chest was very dark,” Aaron said. “The only way you can get that kind of dark blood in a chest wound is some component of the pulmonary arterial system being damaged.”

MORE: John Hinckley, who shot Reagan, to be freed from oversight
Even so, Aaron recalled Reagan tried to walk on his own toward the emergency room.

“He kind of waved off help — from the stretcher he tried to walk — took about three or four steps then just fell on his face,” Aaron said. “We had him on a stretcher lickety split and had at least one IV line on him almost within seconds.”

There was no exit wound. The president’s dark blood kept flowing from a tube inserted in his chest.

X-Rays revealed the bullet’s precarious position.

“It was situated in a pretty vile place,” Aaron said. “The first thing that went through my mind was, is this a salvageable case?”

In the operating room

Reagan’s bleeding hadn’t stopped even after doctors had re-expanded his lung. Given how near the bullet was lodged to his heart, they decided to operate.

“’Oh my gosh, what have I gotten myself into?’” Aaron remembers thinking at first.

Secret Service agents stood in the room as they wheeled Reagan in and began to pre-breathe the president before inducing anesthesia.

Even while on the table — Reagan struck a one-liner, Aaron recalled: “The president opened his eyes, hauled himself up on his shoulders, hunched himself up on his elbows, reached down and pulled the oxygen mask off his face, looked around and said, ‘I sure hope all of you out there are Republicans!’”

“’Mr. President, for today, we’re all Republicans,’” Aaron recalled Joe Giordano, then head of the trauma team, responding.

The quip “brought the house down” with laughter, Aaron said, despite the grim circumstances.

As the surgery wore on, with Reagan anesthetized for several hours, there was some consideration whether to leave the bullet in, which wouldn’t be unusual if it wouldn’t do any further harm.

“But bullets move around — especially bullets in lungs move around a lot,” Aaron said. “If that thing got loose and migrated out to his heart or got ejected out to his arterial system, his brain — that would have been a serious dereliction.

“The operating clock was ticking, but this issue was a pretty important one.”

“Each minute seemed like an hour,” Aaron said. But persisting, they finally found the bullet.

“If I had said, ‘I’m staying here till tomorrow to get that bullet out,’ they probably would have deferred to that,” he said. “I just had this niggling feeling it wouldn’t be a good idea to wake up the next morning and see the 3-inch headlines in the paper which said, ‘Doctor Failed to Remove the Bullet from the President.’”

Aaron wouldn’t find out until later what a crucial decision that would be.

“I didn’t know that [it was a Devastator bullet],” Aaron said. “As it turned out it was very fortunate that we did persist.”

“Had we closed him up with that bullet in there, with deadly azide — that is a toxin — we’d have had to go back in, reopen him and find it,” he said. “There’s no way in the world you can leave a bullet like that, certainly not in the president of the United States.”

Updating the first lady

When Nancy Reagan arrived at the hospital, Aaron updated her on her husband’s chances of pulling through.

“She was a brick,” Aaron said. “She really held it together pretty well ... “

Nancy would be “bedded down next to his room” while her husband recovered for the next 11 days, Aaron said.

Had Hinckley been a trained assassin, Aaron doubts Reagan would have survived.

“Two bullets and that would’ve been the end of it,” Aaron said. “It was fortunate for Reagan — and in some degree fortunate for [Hinckley] — because if he had [killed] the president, he’d never see the light of day.”

[MarvinStinson]

Reagan nearly died of the injuries he sustained in the attack.

Three others were wounded—White House press secretary James Brady was paralyzed and used a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

Washington police officer Thomas Delahanty retired from the force due to lasting nerve damage.

Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy, who put himself in the line of fire to protect the president, was shot in the stomach but survived the deadly encounter.

[PghBaldy]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_L._Friedman. -— the Clinton Judge is against speech criticizing Judges, but shooting a Republic POTUS is peachy.

[DallasBiff]

No, the story is that the Bushes and Hinckleys are distant cousins, the Hinkleys donated to the Bushs' political campaigns, and that Jeb's brother Neil was scheduled to have dinner with John Hickley's brother Scott Hinckley the day after the day of the attempted assassination of Reagan

Wasn't Neil the "Fredo" of the Bush's.

[GrandJediMasterYoda]

LOL LOL. Or “Biden is forcing Jody to work as a prostitute” lol lol. If you ever seen the movie “Taxi driver” Hinckley was obsessed with that movie and was trying to emulate Travis Bickle

[Lazamataz]

Seems like, knowing what we know today, the Deep State was workng even back then.

Reagan set them back a decade or two.

[Mark17]

I don’t recall ever seeing Jody Foster say anything public about it. She may have, I just don’t remember any.

[GrandJediMasterYoda]

To this day I remember everything about that day. I remember Reagans daughter Maureen on TV absolutely furious “How dare they! They will not kill this man!” which I thought was a strange thing to say. “They”? Same with actor Jack Klugman who later on went ballistic when Hinckley was found nuts and sent to an asylum. He was so ticked off he did a TV show about it. Either way it really ticked me off as well as I was a huge Reagan supporter, the guy was in office only two months!

[GrandJediMasterYoda]

No, I think all she did was talk to law enforcement and say he was sending her letters which is what Travis Bickle does in the movie.

[Laslo Fripp]

😂