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On March 30, 1981, President of the United States Ronald Reagan was shot and wounded by John Hinckley Jr. in Washington, D.C., as he was returning to his limousine after a speaking engagement at the Washington Hilton. Hinckley believed the attack would impress actress Jodie Foster, with whom he had developed an erotomanic obsession. Reagan was seriously wounded by a revolver bullet that ricocheted off the side of the presidential limousine and hit him in the left underarm, breaking a rib, puncturing a lung, and causing serious internal bleeding. He was close to death upon arrival at George Washington University Hospital but was stabilized in the emergency room; he then underwent emergency exploratory surgery. He recovered and was released from the hospital on April 11. No formal invocation of sections 3 or 4 of the Constitution's 25th amendment (concerning the vice president assuming the president's powers and duties) took place, though Secretary of State Alexander Haig stated that he was "in control here" at the White House until Vice President George H. W. Bush returned to Washington from Fort Worth, Texas. Haig was fourth in the line of succession after Bush, Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill, and president pro tempore of the Senate Strom Thurmond. White House press secretary James Brady, Secret Service agent Tim McCarthy, and D.C. police officer Thomas Delahanty were also wounded. All three survived, but Brady had brain damage and was permanently disabled. His death in 2014 was considered a homicide because it was ultimately caused by his injury. Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity on charges of attempting to assassinate the president. He remained confined to St. Elizabeth's Hospital, a D.C. psychiatric facility. In January 2015, federal prosecutors announced that they would not charge Hinckley with Brady's death, despite the medical examiner's classification of his death as a homicide. Hinckley was released from institutional psychiatric care on September 10, 2016. Hinckley's motivation John Hinckley Jr. had erotomania and his motivation for the attack was born of his obsession with then-child actress Jodie Foster. While living in Hollywood in the late 1970s, he saw the film Taxi Driver at least 15 times, apparently identifying strongly with protagonist Travis Bickle, portrayed by actor Robert De Niro. The story involves Bickle's attempts to save a child prostitute played by Foster. Toward the end of the film, Bickle attempts to assassinate a United States senator who is running for president. Over the following years, Hinckley trailed Foster around the country, going so far as to enroll in a writing course at Yale University in 1980 after reading in People magazine that she was a student there. He wrote numerous letters and notes to her in late 1980. He called her twice and refused to give up when she indicated that she was not interested in him. Hinckley was convinced that he would be Foster's equal if he became a national figure. He decided to emulate Bickle and began stalking President Jimmy Carter. He was surprised at how easy it was to get close to the president—he was only a foot away at one event—but was arrested in October 1980 at Nashville International Airport and fined for illegal possession of a firearm.: 70, 251  Carter had made a campaign stop there, but the FBI did not connect this arrest to the president and did not notify the Secret Service. His parents briefly placed him under the care of a psychiatrist. Hinckley turned his attention to Ronald Reagan, whose election, he told his parents, would be good for the country. He wrote three or four more notes to Foster in early March 1981. Foster gave these notes to a Yale dean, who gave them to the Yale police department, who sought but failed to track Hinckley down. Attempted Assassination On March 21, 1981, new president Ronald Reagan (who took office on January 20, 1981) and his wife Nancy visited Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., for a fundraising event. In his autobiography An American Life, Reagan recalled, I looked up at the presidential box above the stage where Abe Lincoln had been sitting the night he was shot and felt a curious sensation ... I thought that even with all the Secret Service protection we now had, it was probably still possible for someone who had enough determination to get close enough to the president to shoot him. Speaking engagement at the Washington Hilton Hotel On March 28, Hinckley arrived in Washington, D.C., by bus and checked into the Park Central Hotel. He originally intended to continue on to New Haven in another attempt to infatuate Foster.: 23  He noticed Reagan's schedule that was published in The Washington Star and decided it was time to act. Hinckley knew that he might be killed during the assassination attempt, and he wrote but did not mail a letter to Foster about two hours prior to his attempt on the president's life. In the letter, he said that he hoped to impress her with the magnitude of his action and that he would "abandon the idea of getting Reagan in a second if I could only win your heart and live out the rest of my life with you.": 58  On March 30, Reagan delivered a luncheon address to AFL–CIO representatives at the Washington Hilton. The Secret Service was very familiar with the hotel, having inspected it more than 100 times for presidential visits since the early 1970s. The Hilton was considered the safest venue in Washington because of its secure, enclosed passageway called "President's Walk", built after the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy. Reagan entered the building through the passageway at about 1:45 p.m., waving to a crowd of news media and citizens. The Secret Service had required him to wear a bulletproof vest for some events, but Reagan was not wearing one for the speech, because his only public exposure would be the 30 feet (9 m) between the hotel and his limousine, and the agency did not require vests for agents that day. No one saw Hinckley behaving in an unusual way; witnesses who reported him as "fidgety" and "agitated" apparently confused Hinckley with another person that the Secret Service had been monitoring. Shooting At 2:27 p.m.,: 82  Reagan exited the hotel through "President's Walk" on Florida Avenue, where reporters waited. He left the T Street NW exit toward his waiting limousine as Hinckley waited within the crowd of admirers. The Secret Service had extensively screened those attending the president's speech, but greatly erred by allowing an unscreened group to stand within 15 ft (4.5 m) of him, behind a rope line.: 80–81, 225  The agency uses multiple layers of protection; local police in the outer layer briefly check people, Secret Service agents in the middle layer check for weapons and more agents form the inner layer immediately around the president. Hinckley had penetrated the first two layers. As several hundred people applauded Reagan, the president unexpectedly passed right i.... Discover the Steven R Weisman popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Steven R Weisman books.