With "Raging Pear Blossom" and "The Silence of the Lambs", beauty star Judy Foster has twice won the Oscar for Best Actress, but what she did not expect was that someone would carry out an assassination plan based on "Taxi Driver", which she participated in when she was 13 years old and was nominated for the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, almost killing the 40th president of the United States.
In the United States, Ronald Reagan as an actor can only be regarded as second-rate in Hollywood, where there are many stars, but as president, Reagan can be listed as one of the greatest presidents in the United States. So, as a politician, Reagan was a successful person, and I'm afraid this was something he didn't expect when he was an actor.
But even more unexpectedly, on the 69th day of his presidency, he was shot at a fundraiser and nearly lost the opportunity to be one of the greatest presidents in American history.
March 30, 1981, was an absolutely dark day for President Reagan, and the wonderful thing is that on this day, The people of Reagan had an ominous and unspeakable premonition.
The reason for this feeling is that on the 21st of that month, when he participated in a fundraising event at the Ford Theater in the District of Columbia, he once involuntarily looked at the box where President Lincoln was assassinated, and there was a strange feeling that someone could approach the president and shoot at close range.
That year, on April 14, 1865, President Lincoln was assassinated by actor John while watching a play in the theater's box.
Although his heart was not steady, Reagan did not encounter the same encounter as Lincoln that day, which also made him put his mind at ease, but what he did not know was that fate did not let him go, and was waiting for him not far ahead.
On the 30th of that month, President Reagan came to the Hilton Hotel in the capital, District of Columbia, where he had lunch and spoke with representatives of union groups.
The Hilton hotel in Washington, D.C., has always had a high security reputation, because it was completed after the assassination of President Kennedy, and in order to prevent the opportunity for similar murderers to get close to the president again, the hotel also set up a safe passage for the president and his entourage, and the average person did not have the opportunity to get close. Not only that, from the hotel, this special passage is only eight or nine meters long from the presidential car, no matter from any point of view, there is no chance to pose a substantial threat to the president's security, but the problem lies in this seemingly problem-free place.
Coupled with the fact that there was no accident when President Reagan entered the hotel from here that morning, the security personnel did not arrange to be equipped with body armor when he left the hotel at the end of lunch.
But it was this loophole that allowed President Reagan to walk through the ghost gate.
At 14:27 that day, after the dinner speech, President Reagan and his entourage walked through this special passage to the car at the door. Just then, a man very close to President Reagan suddenly pulled out a revolver and fired six shots at him in a row!
But because President Reagan was surrounded by a large number of people, it can be said that it was crowded, including both staff and security personnel, the situation was more complicated, the murderer's first shot did not hit the target person, President Reagan, but hit the head of the White House press secretary James Brady; a missed shot, the murderer immediately fired a second shot at President Reagan, but this time the bullet that had just been fired was blocked by the rapid reaction of the SAR police officer Thomas Draghanti, and the bullet hit him on the back of the neck. To say that this bodyguard is still very competent and has achieved the savior of his own body, otherwise it is really difficult to say what the situation of President Reagan will be.
Unable to hit again, the murderer frantically shot President Reagan again, who was already exposed to his sight at this time, but this third shot, probably President Reagan subconsciously lowered his head in an instant, and the bullet dangerously flew over President Reagan's head and hit the glass of another hotel opposite.
At this point, the head of the secret service, Jerry Parr, finally seized the opportunity to push the president into the car in the gap between Officer Thomas's blocking of the gun and the murderer's mistake.
At this point, the killer fired a fourth shot, but this shot was also blocked by Timothy McCarthy, an agent who pounced on the president, and the bullet went into McCarthy's abdomen.
In this way, President Reagan finally entered the car under the special agent's push belt, and at this time, the murderer also fired a fifth shot, but it was blocked by the bulletproof glass on the door of the car.
At this point, the insane murderer fired a sixth and final shot, which finally injured President Reagan. The bullet bounced off the car's bulletproof armor and then hit the president's armpit in the lungs, wounding only about 2.5 centimeters from the heart. If bodyguard Jerry Parr had hesitated and not pushed the president into the car, President Reagan would have been shot in the head.
The killer fired six shots in a row before President Reagan was wounded.
After the assassination, Alfred Antenucci, a labor representative standing next to the killer, reacted first and took action against the killer, punching the gunman in the head and dragging him to the ground. At this time, another agent, Dennis McCarthy, immediately blocked the murderer,"He did so to prevent the murderer from being killed on the spot like Oswald, the murderer who assassinated President Kennedy, and there was no chain of evidence when the person died.
Another agent, Robert Wonko, quickly removed a Uzi submachine gun from a suitcase to cover the president's rapid evacuation and prevent other potential attackers.
After subduing the murderer, the president's car quickly left the scene and drove to the White House, but at that time, everyone did not know that President Reagan had been injured, and the president himself did not feel it, which was most likely too short a time and the pain had not yet begun. But on the way, President Reagan noticed chest pain and at first thought he had broken a bone when he was pushed into the car, but then he spat out foamy blood from his mouth.
The problem was so serious that President Reagan was immediately taken to George Washington University Hospital, where it took less than 4 minutes from the scene to the hospital. After examination, it was shot in the lungs, only 2.5 centimeters from the heart, which is really lucky. Because of the timely rescue, President Reagan was released from the danger of life.
It was later discovered that the bullet used by the killer was the type that could explode at any time after hitting the target, and the bullet on the bodyguard Drachanti who was shot in the neck was carefully removed by a volunteer doctor on April 2, 1981, after putting on a bulletproof vest.
D.C. officer Thomas had to retire early from injury, and press secretary Brady was not so lucky when the bullet that hit him in the head exploded, leaving him paralyzed for life.
Alfred Annuch, who was the first to bring down Hinckley in the shooting, nearly had a heart attack after the incident because the scene was too exciting. Afterwards, his hometown city also named a road Antonucci Avenue as a memorial.
The killer, john Hinckley, who was taken to a District of Columbia prison by agents, was born in Dallas in 1955 to a wealthy merchant family. His reasons for assassinating President Reagan are bizarre, just to attract the attention of the actress he admires, Judy Foster!
The idea of Hinckley's assassination comes from the role of Lavis played by Robert De Niro in the play "Taxi Driver" in which Judy Foster starred that year. In the play, Lavis attempts to murder the presidential candidate in order to attract the attention of the crush on the woman.
The murderer Hinkley has always had a crush on actress Judy Foster, regards himself as an actor Robert De Niro, and frequently shows affection to Judy Foster, but naturally he repeatedly runs into a wall, because Judy does not like him at all, and there is no possibility at all, Judy does not like men.
But Hinkley has been living in his own world, and seeing that Judy ignores him, he begins to use the plot of the movie "Taxi Driver" as a model for the murder of the president to attract Judy's attention.
Initially, he targeted President Carter and was followed several times, but in October 1979 he was arrested on suspicion of harassing President Carter. Soon, President Reagan replaced Carter as the 40th president of the United States, and Hinkley naturally shifted his sights to President Reagan.
Before his assassination, Hinckley had also been arrested in early 1980 for carrying an illegal weapon, but he was not expected to assassinate the president, so he was not listed as a dangerous person restricting access to the president, and the United States Secret Service did not know about Hinckley, which gave him the opportunity to get close to President Reagan.
The assassination of President Reagan quickly became the focus of the world's attention, after all, he was at the helm of the world's superpower. But to the surprise of the world, the murderer Hinckley was not sentenced, because the doctors believed that he was mentally ill, but still had violent tendencies, so Hinckley was admitted to the largest and oldest and most famous psychiatric hospital in the United States, St. Elizabeth's Psychiatric Hospital.
Most Americans, including President Reagan's children, did not understand Hinckley's verdict and his subsequent treatment in a mental hospital, but there was no way, the judge ruled this way, and everyone had to think that Hinckley was a liar, and his acting skills were too good to fool the judge.
Just after the assassination of President Reagan, there was also a small episode of power struggle, which once put the management of the United States in chaos.
After receiving news that President Reagan was being assassinated and operating on, when Vice President George H.W. Bush was still hurrying to the White House, Secretary of State Hague publicly announced in the White House War Room, "According to the Constitution, before the vice president arrives, the core of power is here, right in this chair." "That means I'm in charge now!"
But in the order of succession of the president of the United States, Haig, as secretary of state, can only rank third, and he has exceeded his authority. Of course, he himself later explained that he was talking about the on-site command, not the issue of presidential succession, which was a relief for himself.
On June 5, 2004, the outgoing President Reagan died at home at the age of 93.
On September 27, 2021, after 40 years in a mental hospital, Hinkley was released unconditionally, at the age of 66.
Hinckley's crush, the female star Judy, has married two girlfriends and has had two children by artificial conception. I don't know what kind of mood Hinkley felt when he heard such news, but did he still have a crush on Judy?