page_title: Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy
section_title: Assassination
hierarchical_section_title: Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy / Assassination
caption_attribution_description: English: SWPC-RFK-C020-010 Senator Robert F. Kennedy delivers remarks to a crowd in the Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles. Please Credit: Sven Walnum, The Sven Walnum Photograph Collection/John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston
context_page_description: On June 5, 1968, presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy was mortally wounded shortly after midnight at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Earlier that evening, the 42-year-old junior senator from New York was declared the winner in the South Dakota and California 1968 Democratic Party presidential primaries during the 1968 United States presidential election. He was pronounced dead at 1:44 a.m. PDT on June 6, about 26 hours after he had been shot.
  Following dual victories in the California and South Dakota primary elections for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States, Senator Kennedy spoke to journalists and campaign workers at a live televised celebration from the stage of his headquarters at the Ambassador Hotel. Shortly after leaving the podium and exiting through a kitchen hallway, he was mortally wounded by multiple shots fired from a handgun. Kennedy died in the Good Samaritan Hospital 26 hours later. The shooter was 24-year-old Sirhan Sirhan. In 1969, Sirhan was convicted of murdering the senator and sentenced to death. His sentence was commuted to life in prison in 1972.
context_section_description: The 1968 California presidential primary elections were held on Tuesday, June 4. The statewide results gave Kennedy 46 percent and McCarthy 42 percent. Four hours after the polls closed in California, Kennedy claimed victory in the state's Democratic presidential primary. He spoke by phone with South Dakota Senator George McGovern. At approximately 12:10 a.m. PDT on June 5, he addressed his campaign supporters in the Ambassador Hotel's Embassy Room ballroom in the Mid-Wilshire district of Los Angeles. At the time, the government provided Secret Service protection for an incumbent president, but not for presidential candidates. Kennedy's only security was provided by former FBI agent William Barry and two unofficial bodyguards: Olympic decathlon gold medalist Rafer Johnson and former football player Rosey Grier. Kennedy had welcomed contact with the public during the campaign, and people had often tried to touch him in their excitement.
  Kennedy planned to walk through the ballroom when he had finished speaking. He ended the speech by stating: "My thanks to all of you; and now it's on to Chicago, and let's win there!" He was on his way to another gathering of supporters elsewhere in the hotel. Reporters wanted a press conference, and campaign aide Fred Dutton decided that Kennedy would forgo the second gathering and instead go through the hotel's kitchen and pantry area behind the ballroom to the press area. Kennedy finished speaking and started to exit when William Barry stopped him and said, "No, it's been changed. We're going this way." Barry and Dutton began clearing a way for Kennedy to go left through swinging doors to the kitchen corridor, but Kennedy was hemmed in by the crowd and followed maître d'hôtel Karl Uecker through a back exit.
  Uecker led Kennedy through the kitchen area, holding his right wrist, but frequently releasing it as Kennedy shook hands with people whom he encountered. Uecker and Kennedy started down a passageway narrowed by an ice machine against the right wall and a steam table to the left. Kennedy turned to his left and shook hands with busboy Juan Romero, just as Sirhan Sirhan stepped down from a low tray-stacker beside the ice machine, rushed past Uecker, and repeatedly fired an eight-shot .22 Long Rifle caliber Iver Johnson Cadet 55-A revolver.
  Kennedy fell to the floor, and bodyguard William Barry hit Sirhan twice in the face while others, including writer George Plimpton and Grier, forced him against the steam table and disarmed him, as he continued firing his gun in random directions. Five other people were wounded: William Weisel of ABC News, Paul Schrade of the United Automobile Workers union, Democratic Party activist Elizabeth Evans, Ira Goldstein of the Continental News Service, and Kennedy campaign volunteer Irwin Stroll.
  After a minute, Sirhan wrestled free and grabbed the revolver again, but he had already fired all the bullets and was subdued. Barry went to Kennedy and placed his jacket under the candidate's head, later recalling: "I knew immediately it was a .22, a small caliber, so I hoped it wouldn't be so bad, but then I saw the hole in the Senator's head, and I knew". Reporters and photographers rushed into the area from both directions, contributing to the confusion and chaos. As Kennedy lay wounded, Juan Romero cradled his head and placed a rosary in his hand. Kennedy asked Romero, "Is everybody OK?" and Romero responded, "Yes, everybody's OK." Kennedy then turned away and said, "Everything's going to be OK." This moment was captured by Life photographer Bill Eppridge and Boris Yaro of the Los Angeles Times and became the iconic image of the assassination. There was some initial confusion concerning who was shot, one witness believing that the primary victim was Kennedy's campaign manager and brother-in-law Stephen Edward Smith. Another witness stated that a female in a polka-dot dress had exclaimed repeatedly, "We killed him," before running away. Video footage of the witness's testimony can be seen in the Netflix series Bobby Kennedy for President.
  Kennedy's wife Ethel 
caption: Kennedy addressing supporters in the Embassy Ballroom of the Ambassador Hotel
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