Ronald Reagan was shot on this day in 1981; see the photos

On March 30, 1981, President Ronald Reagan was shot while leaving a speaking engagement at the Washington Hilton Hotel. Reagan had just addressed the Building and Construction Workers Union of the AFL-CIO.

As the president was walking to his limousine at 2:27 p.m. from the side entrance on Connecticut Avenue, John Hinckley Jr., 25, who was armed with a .22 caliber revolver, began shooting. Hinckley’s first shot hit White House press secretary James Brady in the head, partially paralyzing him.

Also wounded were District of Columbia police officer Thomas Delahanty and Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy.

While one Secret Service agent pushed Reagan into the limo, another put himself between the shooter and the president. Hinckley’s last bullet, of six shots fired, ricocheted off the limousine and hit the president in the left underarm and lodged in his lung.

Agents at first did not realize Reagan had been hit. When they did, he was taken to George Washington University Hospital. He arrived there less than four minutes after leaving the hotel.

At the hospital, according to history.com, Reagan said to his wife, Nancy, “Honey, I forgot to duck.”

Reagan began resuming some of his duties the next day. He returned to the White House on April 11, 1981.

Hinckley reportedly was trying to impress the actor Jodie Foster. He had stalked her and wrote her a letter saying he was trying to gain her love and respect.

Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity in June 1982 and committed to a psychiatric facility. He was permitted supervised day trips in 1999 and was allowed to visit his parents once a week. He was released in 2016 and moved in with his elderly mother in Virginia, after officials determined that he was no longer a threat to himself or others.

In 2018, a federal judge ruled that Hinckley may live on his own. He is required to do volunteer work or have a job at least three days a week and is restricted to a 75-mile radius of Williamsburg, Va. He is required to have a GPS-enabled mobile phone whenever he is away from home, according to USA Today.

Reagan, former governor of California and a former actor, was elected president in 1980. He had been sworn into office in January 1981, two months before he was shot.

He won a second term in 1984 and left office when that term ended in 1989. He was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 1994, at age 83, and died in California on June 5, 2004, at 93.

Brady had been shot above his left eye. He was left with partial paralysis that required him to use a wheelchair.

Brady and his wife, Sarah, became gun control advocates and lobbyists. They founded the nonprofit Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act was passed in 1993. Brady died in 2014.

via nola.com
https://www.nola.com

President Ronald Reagan winces and raises his left arm as he is shot by an assailant outside a Washington hotel on Monday, March 30, 1981. (Photo by Ron Edmonds, The Associated Press) (RON EDMONDS/)

Police and Secret Service agents swarm the gunman after President Ronald Reagan is shot outside a hotel in Washington on March 30, 1981. (Photo by Ron Edmonds, The Associated Press) (RON EDMONDS/)

Secret Services agents and police swarm a gunman, obscured from view, after he tried to assassinate President Ronald Reagan outside the Washington Hilton hotel on Monday, March 30, 1981. (Photo by Ron Edmonds, The Associated Press) (Ron Edmonds/)

Photo diagram highlights logistics of President Ronald Reagan and others during the assassination attempt on the president outside the Hilton Hotel in Washington on March 30, 1981. (Photo by The Associated Press) (Anonymous/)

Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy is loaded into an ambulance after being wounded during an assassination attempt on President Reagan outside a Washington Hotel on March 30, 1981. (Photo by Ron Edmonds, The Associated Press) (RON EDMONDS/)

Secret Service agents wrestle with suspect in an assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan outside the Washington Hilton Hotel in a still image from CBS News video on March 30, 1981. (Image from CBS News via The Associated Press)

Two people hang a sign on a building near the George Washington University Medical Center in Washington on March 31, 1981. President Ronald Reagan was being treated at the hospital for a gunshot wound he received a day earlier. (Photo by Charles Tasnadi, The Associated Press) (Charles Tasnadi/)

Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy, foreground, Washington police officer Thomas Delehanty, center, and presidential press secretary James Brady, background, lie wounded on a street outside a Washington hotel after shots were fired at President Reagan on March 30, 1981. Police and secret service subdue the gunman in the background. (Photo by Ron Edmonds, The Associated Press) (Ron Edmonds/)

President Ronald Reagan and his wife, Nancy Reagan, acknowledge cheers upon arrival on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington on April 11, 1981, 12 days after the president was shot by a would-be assassin. (Photo by . The Associated Press) (Anonymous/)