Gunfire has eerie echoes of Reagan’s shooting outside the same Washington hotel

WASHINGTON (AP) — When President Ronald Reagan left the Washington Hilton Hotel and headed for his waiting limousine on a gray March afternoon, he was exposed for mere seconds. That was all it took for a would-be assassin to take aim and fire.

Reagan was hit in the chest and nearly died. Forty-five years later, another gunman is accused of trying to storm into the same hotel’s ballroom during the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on Saturday night. The suspect fired at least one shot, authorities said, before being subdued in a chaotic scene that forced the evacuation of President Donald Trump and other top administration officials. The gunman never entered the ballroom or was close to the president.

That Hilton has hosted hundreds of large events attended by presidents and other dignitaries since it opened in the 1960s. While on the surface there appear to be similarities in the incidents beyond its location, there are stark differences that highlight how much has changed in the decades since Reagan was shot.

“Security is a lot more robust today than it was then,” said Stephen T. Colo, a former assistant director of the Secret Service. “But you still deal with the same tension involving politicians and the public’s access to them.”

Washington Hilton was built to accommodate presidents

The Washington Hilton Hotel and its cavernous ballroom were designed to be a prime venue for presidential speeches and events. To entice high-profile speakers, primarily the president, architects designed a VIP entrance on the side of the hotel and, one floor below it, a holding room known as the bunker.

In the decade before Reagan was shot, presidents visited the hotel more than a hundred........

© The Hill