Dinner shooting again put Washington Hilton at center of presidential history

When shots rang out at the Washington Hilton as President Trump sat in the ballroom for the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner on Saturday night, there were echoes of the hotel's storied presidential history. On March 30, 1981, President Ronald Reagan nearly died after John Hinckley Jr. pulled out a .22 caliber revolver and unleashed six shots in 1.7 seconds, from a mere 15 feet away, as the president was leaving the hotel. He had come from addressing union members of the AFL-CIO in the ballroom, ending his remarks with a familiar line: "Together we'll make America great again." Lead U.S. Secret Service agent Jerry Parr – who was inspired to become an agent after seeing Reagan play one in a film as a boy – acted quickly to throw Reagan in the limousine, according to Del Wilbur, author of "Rawhide Down" (Rawhide was Reagan's Secret Service code name). But, said Wilbur, Hinckley's sixth shot "slaps against the side of the limousine, flattens to the size of a dime, slips through a gap an inch and a half wide between the door and the door frame and hits Reagan." Bullets hit White House press secretary James Brady in the head – paralyzing him, D.C. police officer Thomas Delehanty in the back, and U.S. Secret Service agent Tim McCarthy in the chest. …