Hospital Grants Hinckley Leave Despite Protests

Presidential assailant John W. Hinckley Jr. was allowed to leave St. Elizabeths Hospital, where he has been held since 1982 after shooting President Reagan, for 12 hours last month over the objections of the Secret Service, officials said Wednesday.

Hinckley was accompanied by an unarmed hospital aide. He spent the time at a family reunion at the Prison Fellowship Ministries, a suburban facility believed to be affiliated with St. Elizabeths. The Secret Service, concerned about the possibility of escape and the security of the facility, followed Hinckley and the aide from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Dec. 28.

It was the first time that Hinckley--who was found innocent of the shooting by reason of insanity--has been allowed to leave the hospital without armed escorts. U.S. Atty. Joseph E. diGenova, in a statement Wednesday, said that Hinckley was released under a federal statute that permits the release of mental patients with supervision.

“We have seen nothing that would change our opinion that Hinckley is a danger to our protectees,” Secret Service spokesman Jane Vezeris said. “This was a decision by the hospital over which we had no control.”

The White House had no comment. Reagan was vacationing in California at the time of the leave.

U.S. District Judge Barrington D. Parker, who had rejected several of Hinckley’s requests to be freed in the last few years, said he approved of the release. “I was aware of it and I had no particular problem with it. He was in the custody of authorities, so I didn’t see a problem,” he said.

Last March, the judge turned down a request by Hinckley that he be permitted to leave the hospital grounds by himself one day each month. Although hospital officials testified at the time that Hinckley was “substantially improved,” they said that he still had a mental disorder.

“What he asked for then was a lot more drastic,” Parker said Wednesday. “This was different.”

Hinckley, 31, has been confined to a maximum security unit at St. Elizabeths since June, 1982, after the March 30, 1981, shooting of Reagan, Press Secretary James S. Brady and two others.