Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy
On June 5, 1968, Robert F. Kennedy was shot by Sirhan Sirhan at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California and pronounced dead the following day.
| Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy | |
|---|---|
Robert F. Kennedy lies mortally wounded on the floor immediately after the shooting. Kneeling beside him is 17-year-old busboy Juan Romero, who was shaking Kennedy's hand when Sirhan Sirhan fired the shots. | |
| Location | Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Coordinates | 34°03′35″N 118°17′50″W |
| Date | June 5, 1968 12:15 a.m. (UTC−7) |
| Target | Robert F. Kennedy |
Attack type | Political assassination, mass shooting |
| Weapons | Iver Johnson .22 LR revolver |
| Deaths | 1 (Kennedy died on June 6, 1968 from his injuries) |
| Injured | 5 |
| Perpetrator | Sirhan Sirhan |
| Verdict | Guilty on all counts |
| Convictions | First-degree murder, assault with a deadly weapon with intent to commit murder (5 counts)
|
| Sentence | Death in 1969; commuted in 1972 to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole |
Kennedy, a United States senator and a leading candidate in the 1968 Democratic Party presidential primaries, won the California and South Dakota primaries on June 4. He addressed his campaign supporters in the Ambassador Hotel's Embassy Ballroom. After leaving the podium, and exiting through a kitchen hallway, he was mortally wounded by multiple shots fired by Sirhan. Kennedy died at Good Samaritan Hospital nearly 25 hours later. His body was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
Sirhan, a Palestinian who held strong anti-Zionist and pro-Palestinian beliefs, testified in 1969 that he killed Kennedy "with 20 years of malice aforethought"; he was convicted and sentenced to death. Due to People v. Anderson, his sentence was commuted to life in prison in 1972 with a possibility of parole. His parole request has been denied numerous times.
Kennedy's assassination prompted the Secret Service to protect presidential candidates. Additionally, it led to several conspiracy theories. It was the final of four major assassinations in the United States that occurred during the 1960s.