The air outside the Washington Hilton’s T Street NW exit was cold and damp that afternoon. A small crowd of reporters and onlookers pressed against ropes, waiting for the familiar figure to emerge from the hotel’s side door. The event had been a luncheon speech to union members. Routine. When President Ronald Reagan appeared, smiling and waving, he moved quickly toward the waiting limousine, about thirty feet away.
Then came the sound: not a dramatic boom, but a rapid series of sharp pops, like firecrackers or backfiring engines. Six shots in less than two seconds. The scene didn’t freeze so much as it erupted into a frantic, compressed chaos. Secret Service agent Jerry Parr shoved the president headfirst into the open limousine door, his body a human shield. Press Secretary James Brady fell to the sidewalk, a bullet in his brain. Police officer Thomas Delahanty and Secret Service agent Tim McCarthy also went down, hit as they turned toward the gunfire.
Inside the limousine, Reagan felt a crushing pain in his back. He thought he’d been injured by Parr’s forceful push. The car smelled of leather and panic. Only later, at the hospital, would they find the .22 caliber bullet, flattened like a dime, lodged an inch from his heart. The mundane had been punctured. The protocol, the ropes, the waving—all of it was just a thin film over a different, more volatile reality.