Man who shot Wallace released from prison

WASHINGTON – Arthur Bremer, who as a young loner 35 years ago made a bold grab for notoriety by shooting Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace and three other people in a suburban Maryland parking lot, was released from state prison early Friday morning after officials said he had turned himself into a “model prisoner.”

Now 57, the man who put Wallace in a wheelchair was set free by a Maryland state law mandating his supervised release because he had amassed a large number of credits for good behavior behind bars. But authorities said Bremer must adhere to strict guidelines, never leave the state and “stay away from any local, state, federal or foreign official or officeholder, as well as a current candidate.”

His release appears to mark the first return to freedom for any of the perpetrators from a string of successful or attempted assassinations of public figures from the 1960s to the early 1980s. Lee Harvey Oswald was killed in custody shortly after shooting President Kennedy. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassin, James Earl Ray, died of natural causes in prison. Others have been denied parole, including Sirhan Sirhan, who shot Robert F. Kennedy, Mark David Chapman, killer of John Lennon, and Sara Jane Moore and Lynette Fromme, who made separate failed attempts on President Ford in 1975.

The only one close to getting out appears to be John W. Hinckley Jr., a confused young man like Bremer who shot and wounded President Reagan in 1981. He has been allowed to leave a Washington, D.C., mental institution for brief visits with his family.

“I would describe Arthur Bremer as a model prisoner,” said Rick Binetti, spokesman for the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services. “He kept to himself. He stayed out of trouble.”

Wallace, whose cry of “segregation forever” catapulted him to national attention, was running a racially charged campaign for president when he was confronted by Bremer in a shopping mall parking lot in Laurel, Md., on May 15, 1972. The candidate was shaking hands as Bremer jammed the barrel of a .38-caliber revolver into Wallace’s stomach.

The young man from Wisconsin started firing rapidly, hitting Wallace four times, sending one of the bullets into his spinal column. Three others in the crowd also were shot.

Wallace never walked again. His presidential prospects ended that afternoon.

His son, George C. Wallace Jr., said his father spent the rest of his life in continual pain.

Bremer pleaded insanity, but a jury convicted him of four counts of assault with intent to murder. He was sentenced to 53 years, and should he violate the terms of his release, he could be returned to prison until 2025.

He spent most of his incarceration at a state penitentiary in Hagerstown, Md., largely forgotten.

Maryland prison officials said that over the years Bremer changed dramatically. They said he worked as an educational aide to other inmates, and sometimes earned as much as $1 a day. But he has never spoken about the shootings. He repeatedly turned down requests for interviews. On Friday he was released before dawn so as to avoid the cameras.

His brother, Roger Bremer, of Milwaukee, told the Baltimore Sun he was uncertain how Arthur will adapt to life without bars.

“I’d be afraid to see him,” the younger brother said. “Nobody knows what he’ll be like after all these years. “

He added that authorities said his brother was “kind of like a hermit” in prison and “doesn’t talk and won’t say what’s on his mind.”