Nearing the 50-year anniversary of Atty. Gen. Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles June 5, 1968, 64-year-old Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wants a new investigation. Unable to follow in his father or uncle’s [President John F. Kennedy’s] footsteps due to disabling voice disorder known as Spasmodic Dysphonia, RFK Jr. spends his time on environmental issues, now turning to his father’s assassination. RFK Jr. believes ballistic evidence indicates the presence of a second gunman that might have fired the fatal shot, despite 24-year-old Palestinian Sirhan Sirhan convicted by the Los Angeles District Attorney of first-degree murder. Sirhan confessed to murdering RFK at the time. Interviewing Sirhan at Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego in December 2017, RFK heard a different story. As 14-year-old prep school student June 5, 1968, he heard the official report.
RFK Jr. can’t account for some 11 shots fired in Ambassador Hotel’s kitchen pantry where Sirhan discharged his .22 caliber firearm into RFK, minutes after his acceptance speech winning the California Democratic Primary June 5, 1968. Eyewitnesses, including other victims hit by Sirhan’s .22 caliber gun, think there were at least three more shots fired beyond Sirhan’s eight-shot revolver. Ballistic experts at trial couldn’t agree if the recovered bullets were fired by the same handgun. “I got to a place where I had to see Sirhan,” RFK Jr. told the Washington Post May 26. “I went there because I was curious and disturbed by what I had seen in the evidence,” said RFK Jr., confessing that he’s studied the police transcripts for years. Without disclosing what he talked about with Sirhan, RFK Jr. hinted that it matched his own lingering doubts about Sirhan’s trial and conviction.
Sirhan has had multiple parole hearings over the years all claiming that he recalled nothing about killing RFK, despite his confession to the Los Angeles Police Department while incarcerated, not to mention eyewitnesses watching him discharge all eight bullets from his .22 caliber revolver. Whatever denials RFK Jr. heard from Sirhan nearly 50-years after the fact cannot be taken seriously. After discharging his weapon into RFK, Sirahan was quoted as saying, “Kennedy, you son-of-a-bitch,” not the kind of statement from an innocent man. RFK Jr. can’t reconcile the fact that as many as 11 shots were recorded at the time of the assassination, ballistic experts disagree about whether they came from the same gun. Sirhan was diagnosed as schizophrenic by court-ordered psychiatrists before his first degree murder conviction. Now 74-years-of age, RFK Jr. can’t possibly believe anything he says.
Like his uncle, President John F. Kennedy, there are plenty of conspiracy theories about RFK’s assassination “I was disturbed that the wrong person might have been convicted of killing my father,” said RFK, sharing his reason seeking to reopen the closed investigation. “My father was the chief law enforcement officer o this country. I think it would have disturbed him if somebody was put in jail for a crime they didn’t commit,” said RFK Jr., forgetting that, whether there was a second gunman or not, Sirhan was lying-in-wait before unloading his revolver into his father. Sirhan confessed to assassinating RFK, admitting he carried a vendetta against the RFK for supporting the state of Israel. Sirhan claimed his family was displaced from Jerusalem at the time of Israel’s May 14, 1948 independence. RFK Jr. knows Sirhan had plenty of motive-opportunity-and means to kill his father.
RFK relies on the memory of gun shot victim United Auto Workers regional director Paul Schrade who also believes in the second gunman theory. Schrade contends he saw Sirhan shoot RFK from the front, not accounting for how a bullet hit the back of his brain. Other eyewitnesses saw RFK spin around once hit, taking another shot to the back of his head. Whatever Schrade experienced on June 5, 1968, it doesn’t reverse Sirhan discharging his .22 caliber revolver into RFK, shouting, “Kennedy, you son-of-a-bitch.” “Once Schrad showed me the autopsy report,” RFK said. “Then I didn’t feel like it was something I could just dismiss. Which is what I wanted to do,” showing that RFK Jr. is vulnerable to the influence, no matter how improbable dubious conspiracy theories. Asking the Los Angeles DA to reopen the RFK assassination file, RFK Jr. is grasping as straws.
When former Olympic Decathalete and Hollywood actor Rafer Johnson wrestled Sirahan to the floor with murder weapon in hand on June 5, 1968, what more did anyone need to see? Former California Deputy Atty. Gen. Russell Iungerich, who examined all the facts when the RFK assassination file was reopened [1975-76], said all facts pointed to one assassin: Sirhan Sirhan “His [RFK Jr.] comments are just way off base,” said Iungerich. “When you add up all the evidence produced at the hearings, there ‘s no way you can reconfigure the evidence to say that there was a second gunman . . “ regardless of any discrepancies in the number of shots allegedly fired. Unlike the JFK assassination, where no one saw Lee Harvey Oswald pull the trigger Nov. 22, 1963, there were plenty of eyewitnesses who saw Sirhan Sirhan pull the trigger at least eight times. Whatever happened June 5, 1968, Sirhan deserved what he got.
