In an exclusive interview with CBS News, failed President Ronald Reagan assassin John Hinckley Jr.expressed remorse for his actions and claimed he is an “ordinary guy who’s just trying to get along like everybody else.”
“I’m just trying to show people, I’m kind of an ordinary, ordinary guy who is trying to get along like everybody else. If you think I’m just some crazy person, I’m not that anymore at all,” Hickley told CBS News’ Major Garrett.
“I have true remorse for what I did,” Hinckley said. I know they probably can’t forgive me now, but I just want them to know that I am sorry for what I did.”
In 1981, John Hinckley Jr. shot and wounded Pres. Reagan and three others — now, he's been granted unconditional freedom.
He says he wants to show that decades of mental health treatment have made him an “ordinary guy who’s just trying to get along like everybody else.” pic.twitter.com/Nj8w4WX3I1
— CBS Mornings (@CBSMornings) June 28, 2022
“I went to Washington Hilton hotel, and he came out from giving a speech. And I was right there, and I fired shots at him which so unfortunately hit other people, too,” Hinckley told Garrett, adding that he didn’t recall what he was feeling at that moment.
“I feel terrible for what I did, and I’ve had remorse for many years for what I did, if I could take it all back, I would, I swear, I would take it all back,” Hinckley, who was granted unconditional release scheduled for June 2022, said of his feelings on the assassination attempt.
“Is there any part of you that wonders how the John Hinckley of that era could have gotten to that point?” Garrett asked.
Hinckley replied that he did not “have a good heart,” and “I was doing things that a good person doesn’t do. It is hard for me to relate at all to that person back then.”
CBS stated that Hinckley also told them that he believed President Reagan was a “nice man” and a “good president.”
“I truly believe I had serious mental illness that was preventing me from knowing right from wrong back then,” Hinckley stated.
