Chaos outside the Washington Hilton Hotel after the assassination attempt on President Reagan, photograph by Michael Evans, 1981
Courtesy Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum
Many were wounded on the ground outside the Washington Hilton Hotel after John Hinckley Jr. attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan in 1981.
The jury found Hinckley “not guilty by reason of insanity” and the court committed him to St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, D.C. The case fueled legal changes that made it easier to incarcerate people with mental health conditions for crimes, rather than place them in mental hospitals.
