This Saturday evening, an armed man tried to enter the Hilton Washington hotel, where Donald Trump was attending the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. After exchanges of fire, the American president was evacuated from the room. Forty-five years earlier, Ronald Reagan was seriously injured by a gunman in front of this same establishment.
On March 30, 1981, Ronald Reagan was seriously injured by gunfire during an assassination attempt while leaving the Hilton Washington hotel. A certain John Hinckley Jr., aged 25, fired six shots in the direction of the 40th President of the United States.
Ronald Reagan hit in the lung
A few minutes before this assassination attempt, Ronald Reagan had given a speech at the Hilton Washington hotel to the AFL-CIO (American Federation of Labor – Congress of Industrial Organizations), the American Federation of Labor. A speech organized sixty-nine days after taking office.
As the president greeted the crowd as they left the hotel, John Hinckley Jr. pulled out a .22-caliber revolver and opened fire, shooting six times. Several bullets hit James Brady, the White House spokesperson at the time. Seriously injured, he suffered serious neurological problems and used a wheelchair for many years, before passing away in 2014.
Thomas Delahanty, a police officer, and Tim McCarthy, a secret service agent, were also injured. Hit by a bullet in the left side, Ronald Reagan suffered a perforated lung and significant internal bleeding. Rushed to George Washington University Hospital, he underwent successful surgery and recovered quickly.
A “lone gunman”
Arrested immediately in front of the Hilton Washington hotel, John Hinckley Jr. explained that he wanted to impress actress Jodie Foster after seeing her in the film Taxi Driver. He had been charged with attempting to assassinate the American president and assaulting one of his agents. But the young man, suffering from acute psychosis, was found not guilty and interned in a psychiatric hospital. In March 2022, aged 67, he was released, the courts considering that he no longer posed a threat.
Nearly forty-five years after this assassination attempt, it was Donald Trump who was evacuated from the Hilton Washington hotel this Saturday evening, where gunshots were heard. The attending president, who was attending the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, was exfiltrated after a gunman attempted to enter the building.
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Authorities say a “lone gunman” forced a security checkpoint in the hotel lobby, just outside the ballroom where the dinner was taking place. “He was armed with a shotgun, a pistol and several knives,” Metropolitan Police Department Acting Chief Jeffery Carroll told reporters.
The police exchanged fire with the suspect and “intercepted this individual”. A uniformed Secret Service officer was “hit in the bulletproof vest” and taken to the hospital, but was doing well, Jeffery Carroll said. The suspect was not hit by the bullets, but was taken to hospital to be examined. He was in custody and is due to appear before a judge Monday in federal court.
Originally published at Almouwatin.com
