A New York City music venue has decided to cancel a performance from John Hinckley Jr., the man who attempted to assassinate former President Ronald Reagan and began his unconditional release on Wednesday.
Hinckley reportedly trying to enter the music industry following his time in prison and managed to book an event at Market Hotel in Brooklyn, New York. However, the hotel ultimately decided to pull the plug on the performance.
The Daily Wire reports:
“We do believe that ex-cons and people with mental illness can recover, and that we should want them to maintain hope that they can better themselves and earn a chance to fully rejoin society,” the venue wrote in a lengthy Instagram post. “[B]ut we are living in dangerous times, and after being presented with and reflecting on some very real and worsening threats and hate facing our vulnerable communities – our family here in nightlife – and after seeing the nature of who this booking has antagonized, and who and what else those same folks are upset about: we don’t see the need to allow someone who did something awful to skip the line and play even our middle size independent community stage.”
The venue also acknowledged that Hinckley wouldn’t have sold tickets without his association with the assassination attempt.
“If we were going to host an event for the principle, and potentially put others at risk in doing so, it shouldn’t be for some stunt booking — no offense to the artist,” the venue added. “We might feel differently if we believed the music was important and transcended the infamy, but that’s just not the case here (though any artist can get there — even someone who committed awful crimes and suffered mental illness).”
“It is not worth a gamble on the safety of our vulnerable communities to give a guy a microphone and a paycheck from his art who hasn’t had to earn it, who we don’t care about on an artistic level, and who upsets people in a dangerously radicalized, reactionary climate,” the venue concluded.
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