The man who shot Ronald Reagan at the Washington Hilton Hotel in 1981 blasted the security failure at the same venue this weekend, where a gunman allegedly targeted President Trump.
John Hinckley Jr., who injured Reagan and three others, including White House Press Secretary James Brady, during the failed assassination attempt four decades ago, suggested there are still issues of “lax” security at the hotel and that it should not host high-profile events.
Speaking to TMZ, Hinckley said it was “spooky” to learn that another alleged assassination attempt against a president “took place at the same hotel as mine did.”
Hinckley, who was found not guilty by reason of insanity and held at a psychiatric hospital until his supervised release in 2016, is now calling on the hotel to stop hosting events there “because bad things keep happening” and “it’s just not a secure place to hold big events.”
Cole Allen, 31, was apprehended after exchanging fire with security officials after storming through a checkpoint on his way to the ballroom, where Trump and several other top Cabinet officials were attending the black-tie event.
The incident has sparked widespread concern and questions about security at the hotel, which the Secret Service was reportedly assigned by the Trump administration to only protect the ballroom and its immediate perimeter.
Speaking to TMZ, Hinckley said security at the hotel was also “lax” before he tried to kill Reagan on March 30, 1981.
Hinckley described how he blended in with a crowd of reporters waiting outside the hotel for Reagan to exit. He said Secret Service agents never checked whether he was a reporter after he managed to slip into the crowd.
In a scathing article, the Daily Beast’s Executive Editor Hugh Dougherty—who stayed in the room next to the alleged gunman—blasted the “jaw-dropping” security breaches that allowed a “man who wanted to kill people” to simply check into the hotel the day before the president was scheduled to arrive.
“How on earth could someone with a disassembled long gun check into a room at a hotel where the president was going to speak? I can answer that: Nobody even looked at my luggage on Friday afternoon,” Dougherty wrote.
“Worse, my colleague arrived on Saturday at 5 p.m. Nobody looked at his luggage either: No magnetometers, no hand checks, no I.D. checks. Nothing.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the Hilton for comment.
