Hinckley freed from court control

NORFOLK, Va. — John Hinckley Jr., who shot and wounded President Ronald Reagan in 1981, was freed from court oversight Wednesday, officially concluding decades of supervision by legal and mental health professionals.

“After 41 years 2 months and 15 days, FREEDOM AT LAST!!!,” he wrote on Twitter shortly after 12 p.m.

The lifting of all restrictions had been expected since late September. U.S. District Court Judge Paul L. Friedman in Washington had said he would free Hinckley on June 15 if he continued to remain mentally stable in the community in Virginia where he has lived since 2016.

Hinckley, who was acquitted by reason of insanity, spent the decades before that in a Washington mental hospital.

Freedom for Hinckley will include giving a concert — he plays guitar and sings — in Brooklyn, N.Y , that’s scheduled for July. He’s already gained nearly 30,000 followers on Twitter and YouTube in recent months as the judge loosened Hinckley’s restrictions before fully lifting all of them.

But the graying 67year-old is far from being the household name that he became after shooting and wounding the 40th U.S. president — and several others — outside a Washington hotel. Today, historians say Hinckley is at best a question on a quiz show and someone who unintentionally helped build the Reagan legend and inspire a push for stricter gun control.

“If Hinckley had succeeded in killing Reagan, then he would have been a pivotal historical figure,” H.W. Brands, a historian and Reagan biographer, wrote in an email. “As it is, he is a misguided soul whom history has already forgotten.”

Hinckley was 25 and suffering from acute psychosis when he shot Reagan and the others. When jurors found him not guilty by reason of insanity, they said he needed treatment and not a lifetime in confinement. He was ordered to live at St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington. Over the years, the court restricted Hinckley from owning a gun or using drugs or alcohol. He also couldn’t contact actor Jodie Foster, with whom he was obsessed at the time of the shooting, or any of his victims or their families.

“This is the time to let John Hinckley move on with his life, so we will,” the judge said.