It was 30 years ago this week that John Hinckley attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan, as the president walked out of the Washington Hilton Hotel.

The first detective to interview Hinckley after the shooting, now retired and living in Little River, has a different perspective on the would-be assassin than anyone else.

Former detective Eddie Myers says his brush with history was something that just fell into his lap and he doesn't spend much time thinking about it today.

He says the shooting just shows what a tough job it is, to protect a president.

One of the six bullets fired by John Hinckley on March 30th, 1981, struck President Reagan in his side, leaving him with a punctured lung. He made a full recovery.

Hinckley was rushed off to Washington, DC police headquarters that day, where Eddie Myers was working as a homicide detective, and became the first to interrogate the would-be assassin before the FBI took over.

"All hell was breaking loose at the time and the Secret Service didn't know what else to do with (Hinckley) then, so they brought him downtown," said Myers.

Myers described Hinckley as cool, calm and not fully aware of the enormity of what he had done. "But I think he felt like he had accomplished his mission. As we found out later he had written a letter to Jodie Foster expressing his admiration for her and my subsequent interview of her realized that this was all fantasized mostly in his mind."

Hinckley's obsession with actress Jodie Foster became part of his successful insanity defense, though Myers said there was nothing about Hinckley's demeanor that made him appear mentally ill. "He seemed pretty well self-controlled, in control, he was an intelligent person."

Myers said Hinckley has paid the price for what he did that day, that he has not gotten off easy by doing his time in a maximum security facility for the criminally insane. "To spend 20 some, 30 years in the John Howard Pavilion is sometimes I think, as a cop, worse than being in jail."

An FBI photographer snapped a picture of Myers (above) as Hinckley was being fingerprinted, possibly the only picture of Hinckley in police custody that day. But other than the photo, and his part in the new book about the shooting, "Rawhide Down," Myers says he doesn't spend much time these days reflecting on his role in the investigation.

"I'm just a little part of history, and I wish it had never happened," he said.

Myers said he sympathizes with Hinckley's parents, who were devastated by their son's actions. In the end, Myers said, Hinckley was just another thug with a gun.

President Reagan had been in office for only 69 days when the shooting occurred.