WASHINGTON -- FBI Director William Webster said Wednesday the arrest of John W. Hinckley on a gun possession charge in Nashville, Tenn., last October -- five months before he allegedly tried to assassinate President Reagan -- was not reported to the Secret Service because it was considered too 'minor.'
Nashville police already had taken over the case when the FBI was notified about Hinckley's arrest at the Nashville airport while President Jimmy Carter spoke at the city's Opera House Center, Webster told a House Judiciary subcommittee.
'This case was considered by the clerk who took the call to be so minor that it was handled locally, not disseminated,' Webster testified. He said Justice Department guidelines for U.S. attorneys permit this option.
Webster defended the decision not to report a gun case where there was no aggravating circumstance and no known connection with the president.
'Our agreement with the Secret Service since 1973 calls for certain information, but not this kind,' Webster said. 'We all recognize the possibility of 'garbaging' the Secret Service with excessive data.'
Secret Service Director H. S. Knight declined to criticize the FBI in his testimony before a House Appropriations subcommittee. 'It was a judgment call to report it or not,' he said.
Webster was not asked whether he believed reporting Hinckley's arrest might have prevented the attack March 30 that wounded President Reagan, his press secretary, a Secret Service agent and a Washington police officer.
A top federal law enforcement official who asked not to be identified told United Press International recently he did not believe it would have made any difference.
'That's not the answer,' he said. 'They've got 30,000 people in their computer. Any one of them could have been out there.'
Hinckley was arrested while trying to board a flight from Nashville to New York City with three unloaded guns in his hand luggage, Webster said.
Airport police turned Hinkley over to Nashville city police. Local authorities confiscated the weapons, fined Hinckley $50 and court costs and freed him by 5 p.m., well after Carter had left the city, Webster said.
'It seems to me,' commented Rep. Henry J. Hyde, R-Ill., 'that a person having come in contemporaneous with a presidential visit really ought to have a good explanation of why the guns.'
