john hinckley market hotel flyer

John Hinckley, who tried to assassinate Ronald Reagan, playing a show at Market Hotel

John Hinckley, the man who tried to assassinate President Ronald Reagan on March 30, 1981, was released from prison and institutional care in 2016. One of the things he’s been doing since is writing and recording his own songs, having released nearly 30 of them to streaming services. He’s now going to perform some of them live at an upcoming Scenic Presents show at Brooklyn’s Market Hotel on July 8. “I’m very excited about my upcoming show,” Hinckley wrote on Twitter on Saturday. “Ticket sales are good.”

When some people on Twitter questioned why Market Hotel would book someone who famously tried to assassinate a president, they replied, “The man served 40 years in prison / mental health treatment, paid his debt to society. Several darlings of indie music had mental health issues + committed violence / tried to kill people. Daniel Johnston for instance attempted murder more than once and tried to crash an airplane.”

Last year, Hinckley (who doesn’t use the Jr in his name anymore) claimed that Devo owed him unpaid royalties for the band using one of his poems in their 1981 song “I Desire.”