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; 56 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

This article is part of a series about Robert F. Kennedy
Personal 1948 Palestine visit Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation Kennedy Compound Hickory Hill The Enemy Within The Pursuit of Justice To Seek a Newer World Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis Family U.S. Attorney General Law Day Address Baldwin–Kennedy meeting U.S. Senator from New York 1964 election Day of Affirmation Address Mississippi Delta tour Presidential campaign 1968 presidential campaign primaries Boiler Room Girls "Conflict in Vietnam and at Home" University of Kansas remarks Ball State University speech Martin Luther King Jr. assassination speech "On the Mindless Menace of Violence" Assassination and legacy Assassination Perpetrator Ambassador Hotel Grave conspiracy theories Department of Justice Building silver dollar Center for Justice and Human Rights Human Rights Award Journalism Award Book Award Memorial Stadium Brooklyn Memorial Landmark for Peace Memorial Arch of Dignity, Equality, and Justice Kennedy–King College Community Schools Bridge In media
v t e

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 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.

The assassination was one of four major assassinations of the 1960s in the United States, coming several years after the assassination of Kennedy's brother John in 1963 and the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965, and two months after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968.

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).