Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy

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.[1]
Location	Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Coordinates	34°03′35″N 118°17′50″W / 34.0597°N 118.2971°W / 34.0597; -118.2971
Date	June 5, 1968; 55 years ago (1968-06-05) 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[a]
Perpetrator	Sirhan Sirhan
Verdict	Guilty on all counts
Convictions	First-degree murder, assault with a deadly weapon with intent to commit murder (5 counts)[2]
Sentence	Death in 1969; commuted in 1972 to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole

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.

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.^[3]

Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).