clarity, and his love for his family. he was the real deal. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com we don't know precisely what happened. >> oh, my god. >> he's been shot. >> get down! >> the president of the united states has been shot. >> i could see it through the viewfinder. >> even now -- >> an inch from his heart. >> he was minutes away from not making it. >> who is the shooter? >> he says, you know about that, you know about anything. >> a bizarre motive. >> he thought the relationship was real. >> he was a real severe disturbed person.

>> and his crime changed history. "the shooting of ronald reagan," next. on january 20, 1981, ronald wilson reagan was sworn in at the 40th president of the united states. >> i, ronald reagan, do solemnly swear -- >> as with most new administrations, reagan's first couple of months are rocky. >> this is the 70th day of reagan's presidency. things were not going particularly well. he had a very low approval rating, the lowest of any president that early in his first term.

it's a monday. reagan has one deal, deliver a speech to the afl-cio. it's 2:00, reagan's the motorcade's just arrived at the washington hilton hotel, which is behind us. this is the special entrance, the v.i.p. entrance reagan walked into when he first arrived. >> governmental duty is to protect the people, not run their lives. >> the event is covered by all the major networks. for abc news photographer, hank brown, it's a routine job. >> we were with the crew that travels with the president wherever he goes. he wanted to get the picture of the president walking out of the hotel and getting in the limo. >> 15 feet from that door was a rope line. >> all that the cameramen and everybody's laughing. it was unsecured. no i.d. checks. people thought it was a press line. it wasn't. anyone could be behind that line. >> you see hinckley's face about

three rows back totally passive. no reaction at all. >> i get my camera out, aimed it at the door that the president's coming out. i could see it through the viewfinder even now. >> reagan is walking towards his motorcade. secret service agents surrounding him as he goes toward the car. >> 15 feet from him is john hinckley jr., he pulls out his .22 caliber revolver and unleashes six shots in 1.7 seconds. 1.7 seconds is the time it takes me to say 1.7 seconds. >> it's that fast. >> the first shot hits jim brady, the press secretary, in the head. >> brady is seen here between reagan and secret service agent jerry parr.

>> the second shot hits tom, a d.c. police officer in the back. >> get down! get him out! >> the third shot goes high, hits that building across the street right there. the fourth shot hits timothy mccarthy, secret service agent square in the chest. he's not wearing a bullet-proof vest. he falls to the ground. >> the fifth shot hits the armored bullet-proof window of the car as reagan and parr flash behind it, diving in. the sixth shot tracks across the driveway. no one knows where that sixth shot went in later they realize it slapped off the side of the car, slipped through a gap between the door and the door frame. >> i thought it was firecrackers. and the next thing i knew, one of the secret service agents behind me just -- seized me here by the waist and plunged me head first into the limo. >> the agent is 50-year-old jerry paar, head of reagan's

secret service detail. >> as we go in, i go in on top of him and i'm sure i hit my radio or gun or something hit him in the back. >> and i said, jerry, get off. i think you've broken a rib. >> jerry parr is looking out the window pulling out -- looking out the window. he sees three men down. a bullet mark in the left window. knows there's been an assassination attempt and that limousine is alone. >> shots fired. shots fired. >> paar checks reagan out really quickly. he seems okay. reagan thinks he's okay. >> but i ran my hands up under his coat. i felt all around his belt with my hands. no blood. run my hands up under his arms. no blood. >> rawhide is okay. rawhide is okay. >> rawhide is the secret service code name and on this day, there's no better name for a president like ronald reagan. want to go to the hospital or back to the white house? >> going to crown. >> okay. back to the white house.

back to the white house. >> rawhide is okay. >> we interrupt. there's been a late development. shots reported fires outside the hotel where president reagan spoke a short while ago. here's bernard rashard. >> my apology. details are very sketchy at this moment. we don't know precisely what happened. we don't know the sequence. first of all, the president is safe. >> safe, yes, but not okay. >> reagan starts complaining of pain in his back and chest and side. not feeling so good, and just then i coughed. and i had a handful of bright red frothy blood. >> and he said, i think i've cut the inside of my mouth. i said, let me look. it was pretty profuse. >> paar knows this is big trouble so he has a decision to make. do i head back to the white house, the safest place in the universe, or avert to george

washington hospital, where there's not an ounce of security. >> do we want to go to the emergency? george washington? >> that's a roger. >> ronald reagan's life, literally on this day, hung in the balance of a split second and a mere inch and i'm not exaggerating. >> george washington. >> horsepower, horsepower, horsepower, let's hustle. >> outside the hotel, the scene is chaotic. in the bedlam, the shooter is tackled. >> there was pushing. there was shoving. >> back up! >> you can hear the agents scream, get him outta here! get him outta here! and at the same time the ambulance was arriving, so i immediately went back to filming the scene. i thought, i had to preserve history. it brought tears to my eyes. i still see brady lying there. i still think about delahanty.

i see his face. i still see mccarthy being lifted up off the ground and being thrown back by the bullet. >> within minutes of the shooting, president reagan arrives at george washington hospital. he insists on walking in. >> the nurse met me and i told her i've had more trouble breathing. >> the president was at the point where we would say he was ready to crash. the next thing i knew, then my knees began to turn to rubber and i wound up on a gurney. >> if he had gone to the white house, they would have dragged him out of the car, found out he was in big trouble, put him back in the car, drove him to the hospital. it would have took 10 maybe 15 minutes.

he didn't have that time. and there's a nurse trying to trying to get the president's blood pressure. she can't detect it. she can't get the blood pressure. he's not going so good and she's going, oh, my god. he's going to die. i'm going to lose the president and hit me while i was diving into the car. and it hit me back here, under the arm, and then hit a rib. and that's what caused an extreme pain, and then it tumbled, it turned. instead of edgewise and went tumbling down to within an inch of my heart. but don't worry. the president's all right. george kept saying, you don't have to go. he's all right. he hasn't been hurt.

i said, george, i'm going. you better get the car, because i'm going. >> she comes into the er and the first thing ronald reagan says to her is, honey, i forgot the duck. as he's prepped for surgery, reagan stays in character and jokes with his doctors. through looking for a bullet that it could slip into an artery and shoot into the president's brain and kill him. he tucked the president's beating heart in his hand and held it aside. a 31-year-old surgical intern literally held the beating life of the president of the united states in his hand.

>> while reagan is in surgery, the suspect, john w. hinckley jr. of evergreen, colorado, is being questioned. >> he admitted who he was. he made no attempt to hide who he was. >> the fbi and secret service have two questions. why did he do it, and, did he act alone? mr. reagan because of an infatuation with a young actress. leave early go roam sleep in sleep out star gaze dream big wander more

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we can report that shots were fired as president reagan left the washington hilton hotel following that address we carried live here on cnn. the suspect was rushed to district of police headquarters. >> john w. hinckley jr., age 25, is a complete mystery to his captors.

>> when i walked in the room, john hinckley was just sitting quietly on a seat, showed no emotion. >> secret service agent stephen colo is among the first to see hinckley. >> he told me that his wrist hurt, because of the handcuffs that were placed on him and that his had throat hurt. someone hurt his throat when they arrested him. well, it certainly, in my mind, it was not typical that he was complaining about himself after he had just shot a number of people. >> we were sitting in our rec room watching television when they announced that -- >> the president did not appear to be hurt, according to united press international. >> i thought to myself, oh,

that's great. never dreaming that jim would even have been with him, for some reason. the phone rang immediately. it was a friend of mine, and she had heard that jim had been shot. >> the white house immediately sends a car to take sarah to the hospital. >> for some reason i just thought -- it never dawned on me he'd be badly hurt or killed. i just kept thinking, he was shot in the arm. >> it was very obvious he was seriously injured with a gunshot wound to the head, but he was alive. and he probably should not have made it. but he got exceedingly great medical care from the are doctor named art cobrine. >> with mr. brady on the way to the hospital, hospital workers secured a room in the waiting room. >> mrs. reagan came in and she

came over to me and we hugged each other. and she said i am so scared. and i said, i am, too. >> while surgeons worked to save the shooting victim, suspect as a courtesy, they invite secret service agent steve colo to sit in. >> i was there in a liaison position at that time keeping in mind the secret service could not be part of the investigation, because technically, the secret service is at fault any time one of our protectees has been shot or injured. >> behave the questioning begins, the agents inventory hinckley's personal possessions. >> when they opened the wallet there was a picture. the belief was that the picture of this attractive woman came with the wallet, because she was somewhat recognizable as, like, a young starlet, but none of us knew her name. there was a piece of paper that was stuck in the billfold section that had a telephone on

it. but of the fbi agents said oh, that's a connecticut telephone number. it meant nothing to me at the time. >> when the interview begin, hinckley doesn't react well to the questions by the fbi interrogators so they ask agent colo to step in. within minutes, hinckley opens up. >> he told me about the different doctors he had been

making a fist

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>> he handled it very well. as he said to us in his interview, he didn't know what had happened. he still managed to make jokes about it, bring his personality forward to make everybody in the country feel better about themselves. >> everybody but john hinckley jr. in this hour john hinckley jr. pleads not guilty to charges he tried to kill president reagan and both his lawyer and the government agree he is competent to stand trial. ♪

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in this hour john hinckley jr. pleads not guilty to charges he tried to kill president reagan and both his lawyer and the government agree he is competent to stand trial. >> from the moment he was arrested the issue of sanity became paramount to the legal teams assigned to prosecute and defend john hinckley. indictment.

among the spectators were hinckley's parents. they watched intently as the clerk asked their son, how do you plead? in a clear, loud voice, the 26-year-old hinckley answered, not guilty. >> you know, hinckley is an interesting person, but not interesting at the same time. >> there didn't seem to be much there. you could not form a rapport with him. he seemed to have little expression of emotion. hinckley's defense. >> i believed that i spent about 44 hours evaluating him. most of that would have been in interviews with him. he was self-centered, but he wasn't narcissistic. it was more like kind of a loner who doesn't have much else going on. and then would get grandiose ideas including delusional ideas. >> he made up a whole girlfriend for his parents for a year. she didn't exist. >> she seemed awfully real to him at times.

but it was very much to manipulate his parents so that he could be off and doing what it was that he intended to do without their interfering. >> in the summer of 1980, hinckley read a story about jodie foster, the 18-year-old actress was taking a sabbatical from hollywood to attend yale university. so hinckley told his parents that he was going back to college. but at yale, not texas tech. >> so he makes up an elaborate ruse to his parents how he's going to go to yale for a writing class that doesn't exist, and all the time spends stalking foster. he finds out where she lives, slipping notes under her door, on the phone with her. and he would take these calls. >> who is this? oh, no. who is this? who is this? >> this is john. >> who? oh, no. not you again. look, i really can't talk to you. okay? look, do me a really big favor.

do you understand why i can't, you know, carry on these conversations with you, someone i don't know. you understand it's dangerous and it's not fair. all right? >> i understand that, it's just -- >> so you just don't ever want me calling. >> no. really nice talking to you. >> he started to yell at the recorder. hang up, hang up! because this is what we tell our wife or our daughter. you know, you hang up right away. >> really sad and pathetic calls. reaching out to this woman he idolized and wanted to be a part of. he gets in his mind, if i get the president of the united states, she'll want me. she'd know i am. so he starts stalking jimmy carter. >> it was just one month before reagan was elected. he and president carter were campaigning hard for every vote. >> in october of 1980, john hinckley gets within arm's reach of jimmy carter in an event at

dayton, ohio. >> one week later hinckley is in nashville, tennessee, still stalking carter. when hinckley leaves, airport police find several guns in his luggage. >> he was arrested, never fingerprinted and photographed for carrying a weapon and the information was never sent to the secret service. he took the weapon, he paid a fine and that was the end of that. >> within days, hinckley is in dallas where his sister lives, shopping for more guns at rocky's pawn shop. he buys two revolvers for $98, including the one he'll use to shoot president reagan. >> he purchased it legally at the time. caliber .22. a very lightweight snub nose handgun. >> he'd actually gone to firing ranges. he had trained, or go to self-training.

>> john hinckley took a lot of target practice. he took a lot of target practice. he never shot at moving targets. and jerry paar is moving the president towards that open limousine door. >> john hinckley's fragile world begins to crack when he hears shocking news from new york city. >> the news ripped through the air in shock waves. john lennon shot and killed in the dakota apartment building where he lived. >> the suspect is identified as mark david chapman. >> hinckley idolized lennon. that new year's eve he locks himself in his room at his parents' house. drinks peach brandy. plays his guitar and wallows in his own misery. ♪ sometime during the night, hinckley writes in his diary, john lennon is dead. forget it.

it's just going to be insanity. i still think about jodie all the time. anything i might do in 1981 would be solely for jodie foster's sake. i want to tell the world that i love her. kaboom... well, i just have a few other questions. >>chuck, the only other question you need to ask is, "what else can you do for me?" i'll just take a water... get your credit swagger on. become a member of experian credit tracker and find out your fico score powered by experian. fico scores are used in 90% of credit decisions. can a a subconscious. mind? a knack for predicting the future. reflexes faster than the speed of thought. can a business have a spirit? can a business have a soul?

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valentine's day, 1981, john hinckley has been leaving more notes for jodie foster. on one postcard he writes, one day you and i will occupy the white house. please, do your best to remain a virgin.

you are a virgin, aren't you? >> but this time hinckley is not just leaving her notes. he's contemplating a violent act. >> he had guns with him when he was in new haven stalking jodie

he was not capable of taking that as a challenge and then straightening his life out. he was more capable of drifting off as a loner into his own fantasy world, and so at the end of march, he makes the decision that he has to do something. >> six days before the shooting, hinckley flies to los angeles, then boards a bus to washington, d.c. from there, he'll go to new haven and commit his act of love for jodie foster. he even writes her another note telling her to wait for him. >> his plan was to shoot foster, shoot himself, kill both of them in this orgy of violence. that was his plan. >> on his way to yale, hinckley stops off in d.c. he checks into the park central hotel, sleeps, gets up and goes

for a fast-food breakfast. >> it was just by chance that that morning he got up at 10:00, read the paper and saw the president was going to the hilton, to talk to the afl-cio, saw the president's schedule on page a4. i'll see how close i can get to the president with my gun. he writes foster a note. takes a cab up to the hotel. gets there. behind the rope line as reagan is approaching. pulls out his .22 caliber revolver. [ gunfire ] >> he thought something magical was going to happen that didn't have anything to do with ronald reagan, it had to do with some union that he was going to have with jodie foster. >> by the spring of 1982, a year after the presidential assassination attempt, the four victims are all healing. jim brady's recovery is painfully slow but positive.

but using both use of the left side of his body, he retains cognitive thinking and great sense of humor. agent tim mccarthy makes a full recovery and continues his career with the secret service. d.c. police officers tom delahanty suffered a crippling wound that forced his retirement. president reagan surprised his doctors and the nation, healing quickly for a man his age, as for john hinckley jr., his life story was a tabloid soap opera played out for a worldwide audience. >> about his alleged assailant, mr. reagan said, i hope he can find an answer to his problem. said the president, he seems to be a very disturbed young man. >> even jim brady was compassionate. >> he said, well, he didn't hold any ill-will toward him, but then again, he hoped he wouldn't win the irish sweepstakes.

>> hinckley's motive seemed simply surreal. >> none of this was political. it was a way to try to force the recognition that should be granted to him. >> in a surprising move, the judge in the case ordered jodie foster to give a deposition for the trial. it took place march 30th, 1982. the first anniversary of the shooting. by court order, hinckley was allowed in the room. when foster denied a relationship hinckley became enraged. he had to be restrained, and removed from the room. >> i received a great deal of unsolicited mail. i have never met, spoken to or in any way associated with one john w. hinckley. last fall i received several pieces of unsolicited correspondence, and i threw them all away.

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john hinckley's trial began on may 4th, 1982. his defense, innocent by reason of insanity. >> under federal law, at the time, once the defendant raised the defense of insanity, the prosecution had to disprove the insanity claim beyond a reasonable doubt.

>> professor richard bonnie is an expert on law and psychiatry. he wrote what is considered a definitive textbook on the hinckley trial. >> as far as the prosecution is concerned that the dominant diagnosis was that this was a person with a narcissistic personality disorder that was infatuated with jodie foster and basically what he wanted was to be really, really famous. and that he was in touch with reality. as far as the defense was concerned that he basically had a form of schizophrenia, a schizophrenic personality disorder. that he was out of touch with reality, descending into psychosis, that he was delusional. >> my interpretation of insanity goes back to the outfield m'naghten rule. and it's basically can the individual differentiate right from wrong. and clearly, during my interview

with john hinckley, he clearly understood the difference between right and wrong. >> the prosecution argued that hinckley had carefully planned the attack. >> the fact that he was able to travel, the fact that he did look at the schedule, put that type of effort into this event, devastated around, that's premeditated activity. >> the defense countered with dr. will carpenter's testimony on schizophrenia. >> general illnesses like schizophrenia, people can do most things in life in an ordinary way. so they're not conspicuously crazy. they don't go into mcdonald's and order water melons. hinckley, his was more of a reality distortion, false beliefs and just belief in those and letting those guide his life. >> it came down to our

psychiatrist versus his psychiatrist. >> john w. hinckley jr. has been found not guilty by reason of insanity on all 13 counts. >> i was surprised at the verdict. i think almost everyone was surprised by this verdict. >> i would characterize it as astonishment. >> i think the reason it went in that direction is that the prosecution basically denied mental illness. >> this was a case in which there was much evidence in hinckley's own hand, in his writings in his poetry, in his essays to suggest that he was in fact degenerating into a psychotic killer by the time march of 1981 rolled around.

>> expecting a guilty verdict, hinckley had prepared a statement. from the start, all i wanted was for someone to love me. on march 30th, 1981, i was asking my family to take me back. and i was asking jodie foster to hold me in her heart. my assassination attempt was an act of love. after the verdict, hinckley was committed indefinitely to st. elizabeth's hospital in washington, d.c. >> it wasn't until years later that i was assigned to the reagan detail. and we had an opportunity, when i was in the limo with the president, to talk about john hinckley. his desire with u.s. that john hinckley got the necessary help that he needed. and then he said, i have to tell you something, it hurt like hell. >> reagan had a very good way of putting things behind him. he was very good at kind of separating himself from that moment. i don't think it bothered him.

nancy reagan, it would have worried her. she was concerned about every time they would make mention that john hinckley would be released. she would come to me and say, steve, i just need to make sure that won't happen. >> in 2003 the year before president reagan died, a federal judge ruled that hinckley was no longer a danger to himself and others and should be allowed limited visits to his mother's home in virginia. to this day, the secret service watches hinckley, tracking his whereabouts, the people he meets, even the books he checks out of the library. >> is he dangerous to other people still? will he do this again? >> i never had any sense that there was any deep remorse, and i don't think that he'll be very capable. he had mental illness at that time and there are still issues. clearly, i think that he is where he should be.

>> in the years after the assassination attempt, president ronald reagan's approval rating skyrocketed. >> mr. gorbachev, tear down this wall. >> he became one of the most popular presidents in american history. during reagan's second term, jim and sarah brady became gun safety champions. their efforts paid off in 1993 with the signing of the brady violence prevention act. it required federal background checks on commercial sales of handguns to individuals. unfortunately, the brady bill came too late for john w. hinckley. several months after the shooting, his father asked him what might have stopped him. hinckley replied maybe if i had to wait a while to buy a gun,

fill out forms or get a permit or sign in with police or anything complicated, i probably wouldn't have done it. oklahoma city lies at the geographic heart of the country. more small town than big city. it's probably the last place you'd pick to be targeted for destruction. then came the morning of april 19th, 1995. >> good morning in this crisp evening with regard to application 95-501 for a groundwater permit. we'll present evidence, hear evce