More than 40 years after his assassination attempt on then US President Ronald Reagan, John Warnock Hincklay is released. “After all these years I will release Mr. Hinckley unconditionally,” said US District Judge Paul Friedman at a court hearing in Washington. Hinckley’s mental health problems are “subsiding” and are no longer a threat, Friedman said.
Back in 2016, Friedman released Hinckley under strict legal and medical conditions from a psychiatric clinic where the assassin had previously been treated for three decades.
Reagan’s daughter Patti Davis said she was against lifting Hinckley’s surveillance because she feared he might contact her. “I don’t think he feels remorse.”
Reagan, his spokesman and two security officers were injured, some seriously, in the attack on March 30, 1981. Hinckley was found not guilty of insanity on a jury trial in 1982.