Story Behind This photo is
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It was March 30, 1981 and U.S President Ronald Reagan was only 69 days into his presidency. After giving a speech in Hilton Hotel Washington president was struck by a bullet which was fired by John Hinckley, Jr. Three other peoples including Press Secretary James Brady, Washington police officer Thomas Delahanty and Secret Svc. Agent Tim McCarthy were shot.
Agent Robert Wanko (misidentified as “Steve Wanko” in a newspaper report) took an Uzi sub machine gun from a briefcase to cover the President’s evacuation and to deter a potential group attack.
Hinckley’s path toward the assassination attempt began in 1976 when he saw the movie Taxi Driver. Robert DeNiro’s Travis Bickle stalks a Presidential candidate in the hopes that he will somehow impress and rescue a young prostitute played by Jodie Foster. Hinckley, who spent seven years in college without earning a degree or making a friend, added Foster to his list of obsessions.
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 found not guilty by reason of insanity on June 21, 1982. The defense psychiatric reports had found him to be insane while the prosecution reports declared him legally sane. Following his lawyers’ advice, he declined to take the stand in his own defense. Hinckley was confined at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington, D.C. full time until 2006, at which point he began a program of spending gradually more time at his mother’s home. On September 10, 2016, Hinckley was permitted to permanently leave the hospital to live with his mother full time, under court supervision and with mandatory psychiatric treatment. After his trial, he wrote that the shooting was “the greatest love offering in the history of the world”, and did not then indicate regrets.
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