'Your papers, please' must never be heard in America
On March 30, 1981, outside the Washington Hilton Hotel, John Hinckley Jr., described by a presidential assistant as "a kid from a good family in Colorado who just happened to be crazy," opened fire with a small handgun, wounding the president of the United States, his press secretary, a Secret Service agent and a D.C. police officer.
A Secret Service audiotape 30 years old sheds light on the chaotic aftermath of Ronald Reagan's shooting when neither the president nor his guardians realized he'd been shot, and an agent's snap decision to get him to a hospital might have saved his life.
"Get an ambulance," Parr tells the command post, known as Horsepower. "I mean get the, um, stretcher out there."
"We're going right. we're going to Crown," Parr says, using a code word for the White House.
