Soccer Dad

Twenty seven years ago

Pope John Paul II was shot.

Pope John Paul II is shot and wounded at St. Peter's Square in Rome, Italy. Turkish terrorist Mehmet Ali Agca, an escaped fugitive already convicted of a previous murder, fired several shots at the religious leader, two of which wounded nearby tourists. Agca was immediately captured.

Agca claimed that he had planned to go to England to kill the king but couldn't because it turned out there was only a queen and "Turks don't shoot women." He also claimed to have Palestinian connections, although the PLO quickly denied any involvement. Detectives believed that his confession had been coached in order to throw investigators offtrack.

Also though some initially assigned blame to the Bulgarian secret police for running Agca, Edward Jay Epstein later rejected that idea.