{"id":405596,"date":"2026-08-13T16:14:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T16:14:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/405596\/"},"modified":"2026-08-13T16:14:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T16:14:12","slug":"texas-techs-unexpected-link-to-the-reagan-shooting-in-1981","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/405596\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas Tech’s Unexpected Link To The Reagan Shooting In 1981"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s a piece of Lubbock history\u00a0you may not have ever heard about.<\/p>\n

One of the most infamous attempted assassins in American history once walked the campus of Texas Tech University<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"News\/Talk<\/p>\n

John Hinckley Jr.<\/a> is best known for the shocking 1981 assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan. But before he fired six shots outside a Washington, D.C., hotel, Hinckley spent several years as a student in Lubbock.<\/p>\n

\"BureauBureau of Prisons\/Getty ImagesBureau of Prisons\/Getty ImagesFrom Lubbock to Washington D.C.<\/p>\n

Hinckley attended Texas Tech intermittently from 1973 through 1980, although he never graduated.<\/p>\n

At the time, there was nothing particularly remarkable about his presence on campus. He was simply another student in Lubbock.<\/p>\n

That changed dramatically on March 30th, 1981, when Hinckley attempted to assassinate Reagan outside the Washington Hilton<\/a>.<\/p>\n

READ MORE:\u00a0Lubbock ISD Honors Four Officers For Standout Work This School Year<\/a><\/p>\n

Hinckley fired six shots from a .22-caliber revolver as Reagan was leaving the hotel. The president was seriously wounded, along with White House Press Secretary James Brady<\/a>, Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy and Washington police officer Thomas Delahanty.<\/p>\n

Reagan survived.<\/p>\n

Hinckley was arrested and eventually put on trial.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe White House, Getty ImagesThe White House, Getty ImagesThe Jodie Foster Connection<\/p>\n

The motive behind the shooting was bizarre.<\/p>\n

Hinckley had become obsessed with actress Jodie Foster <\/a>after watching the movie Taxi Driver<\/a>. He believed that attempting to assassinate the president would somehow impress her.<\/p>\n

It obviously did not work.<\/p>\n

In 1982, Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity and spent decades in psychiatric institutions. He was eventually released from court supervision in 2022.<\/p>\n

Suddenly, Everybody Was Talking About Texas Tech<\/p>\n

When reporters discovered Hinckley had attended Texas Tech, Lubbock suddenly found itself attached to one of the biggest national stories of the era.<\/p>\n

And some of the coverage wasn’t exactly flattering.<\/p>\n

Texas Tech professor Bill Dean<\/a> later recalled that Hinckley’s connection to the university prompted national media attention and some rather exaggerated portrayals of West Texas.<\/p>\n

According to Dean, some reports essentially portrayed Texas Tech as a place where students wandered around campus carrying guns and suggested that Lubbock was basically the Wild West.<\/p>\n

Because apparently the national media had never actually been to Lubbock.<\/p>\n

\"DominikDominik Bindl, Getty ImagesDominik Bindl, Getty ImagesAnother Lubbock Case<\/p>\n

Hinckley isn’t the only person connected to Lubbock whose activities later became the subject of a major federal investigation.<\/p>\n

In 2011, Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari<\/a>, a Saudi Arabian student living in Lubbock, was arrested after investigators uncovered evidence that he was attempting to obtain chemicals for a bomb and had researched potential targets in the United States.<\/p>\n

READ MORE:\u00a0Flock Cameras At Texas Splash Pad Raise Questions Parents Want Answered<\/a><\/p>\n

He was later convicted of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction.<\/p>\n

So the next time somebody asks you for a strange piece of Lubbock history, you’ve got a pretty good one:<\/p>\n

The man who attempted to assassinate an American president once went to Texas Tech.<\/p>\n

That’s one piece of Hub City trivia you probably won’t find on the welcome sign.<\/p>\n

If you could bring back one restaurant or biz that closed in Lubbock, what would it be?<\/p>\n

Gallery Credit: Landon King<\/p>\n

What areas of construction in Lubbock are currently driving you INSANE?!?<\/p>\n

Gallery Credit: Landon King<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Here’s a piece of Lubbock history\u00a0you may not have ever heard about. One of the most infamous attempted…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":405597,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[168,170,169,223],"class_list":["post-405596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lubbock","tag-lubbock","tag-lubbock-headlines","tag-lubbock-news","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405596\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/405597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}