Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy — 1968 murder in Los Angeles, California, US
The murder of Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy led the U.S. Secret Service to extend protection to all major presidential candidates.
Key Facts
- Date of shooting
- June 5, 1968
- Date of death
- June 6, 1968 (nearly 25 hours later)
- Location
- Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles, California
- Assassin
- Sirhan Sirhan, age 24
- Assassin's sentence
- Death, commuted to life in prison in 1972
- Burial site
- Arlington National Cemetery
By the Numbers
Location
Cause → Event → Consequence
Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian Christian with strong anti-Zionist beliefs, harbored deep animosity toward Robert F. Kennedy. He later testified at his 1969 trial that he killed Kennedy 'with 20 years of malice aforethought,' apparently motivated by Kennedy's support for Israel.
On June 5, 1968, moments after Kennedy addressed campaign supporters in the Ambassador Hotel's Embassy Ballroom following his victory in the California and South Dakota Democratic primaries, Sirhan Sirhan shot him multiple times in a kitchen hallway. Kennedy was taken to Good Samaritan Hospital, where he died nearly 25 hours later.
Sirhan was convicted of murder and sentenced to death, later commuted to life in prison in 1972. The assassination prompted the U.S. Secret Service to extend protection to presidential candidates. It also intensified public grief and political shock, occurring amid a decade marked by the murders of John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr.