RFK conspiracy theory

The Crime

This is the official version of the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, as put forward by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and the LA District Attourney's office (LADA).
On 5th June 1968, 12.15am, Senator Robert F. Kennedy was making his way from the ballroom at the Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles, to give a press conference, after winning the California Primary. The prearranged route went through a food service pantry. While making his way through this area, a Palastinian Arab, Sirhan Sirhan, stepped forward and fired a .22 revolver at the Senator. Although Sirhan was quickly subdued, Kennedy and five others were wounded, although only Kennedy was fatally wounded. Sirhan was arrested at the scene, charged and convicted of first degree murder. He was to have been executed, but the U.S. Supreme Court voided the constitutionality of the death sentence before the sentence could be carried out. Sirhan has been incarcerated at Corcoran State Prison, California, since then. Under Californian law, he should have been automatically scheduled for release in 1984, but this was not the case.
The Complications

The problem with this scenario is that the physical evidence and eyewitness reports would seem to show that Sirhan was incapable of inflicting the wounds attributed to him.
The autopsy carried out by Coroner Thomas Noguchi showed that Senator Kennedy had been shot three times. One shot entered the head behind the right ear, a second shot near the right armpit and a third roughly one and a half inches below the second. All shots entered the body at a sharply upward angle, moving slightly right to left. These shots are incompatible with eyewitness reports of the shooting. Sirhan had no access to the Senator's rear, and Kennedy never turned more than sideways to Sirhan. In addition, Sirhan fired with his arm parallel to the floor, i.e. straight ahead. Maitre d' Karl Uecker, who had been leading Kennedy forward by the right hand at the time the shooting started, grappled Sirhan after his second shot and pushed the gun away. All these points, as well as the fact that the gun was one and a half to six feet from Kennedy, prove that Sirhan could not have inflicted the fatal wounds to the Senator.
Sirhan's .22 revolver contained eight bullets and he had no chance to reload. This caused a problem for the official version of the assassination as all bullets had been accounted for, except for one which was lost in the ceiling space. Reports indicated that a wooden door jamb contained two bullets. This frame and as many as five or six ceiling tiles were removed from the crime scene for tests. Photographs of the crime scene show at least this many tiles missing and more besides. Los Angeles Police Department criminologist DeWayne Wolfer was quoted as saying "it's unbelievable how many holes there are in the kitchen ceiling." This suggests that LAPD found more bullets (or traces of bullets) than could be accounted for by Sirhan's eight shot revolver, at least seven and probably more.
As well as the problems noted above, there are the reports of suspicious people in the area at the time of the assassination. The first policeman on the scene, Sergeant Paul Schraga, was approached by a couple who told him that they had encountered a young man and woman fleeing the Ambassador Hotel shouting "We shot him! We shot him." When asked who they had shot, the young woman joyously replied, "Senator Kennedy." Schraga sent out an All Points Bulletin on the two suspects. This was the start of the "Polka-dot Dress Girl" controversy. In one of the most intuitive pieces of police deduction since the JFK assassination, LAPD declared that Sirhan was the sole assassin within minutes of the crime. Schraga was asked to cancel his APB, and when he refused, it was canceled by his superiors.
The couple's story was explained by the LAPD as a case of mishearing, stating that the young woman must have said "They shot him!" However, a young woman sitting on a staircase outside the Ambassador Hotel, Sandra Serrano, corroborated the couple's story.
Two witnesses in the pantry also saw armed men, aside from Sirhan and security guard Thane Eugene Cesar. Lisa Urso noticed a blond haired man in a grey suit putting a gun into a holster. A second, unnamed, witness saw a tall, dark-haired man, wearing a black suit, fire two shots and run out of the pantry.
The Cover-up

In 1968 it was not a federal offence to murder a presidential candidate. The case, therefore, came under LAPD juristriction. The investigation was based on the wish of Police Chief Ed Davis that it would not be "another Dallas." Whether this meant an intense, professional investigation or a tighter cover-up is debatable.
As the case was the responsibility of the LAPD, there was no pressure to release their findings, the "Summary Report". Researchers into the RFK Assassination finally forced the Report and the LAPD's files to be released, in 1988. Compare this to 1964 for the Warren Commission Report (the year after JFK's assassination) and it becomes obvious why the official version of the assassination has been unchallenged, despite the obvious complications.
After the release of the files, it became clear to what extent the cover-up had been carried out. Evidence which contradicted the official version was destroyed. The more extreme acts of destruction included:
• 2,400 photographs burned because they were "duplicates." In fact, there were no lists precise enough to show that all the photos destroyed were indeed duplicates.
• Ceiling tiles and the door frame from the pantry destroyed, because, according to then Assistant Chief Daryl Gates, they wouldn't fit into card files.
In addition, LAPD records showed that they had recorded 3,470 interviews during the course of the investigation. Only 301 interviews were released. Examination by researchers showed that for 51 key "conspiracy" witnesses, there were no interviews.
The LAPD were not alone in conducting this cover-up. The Los Angeles District Attorney's Office was also involved. The scope of this involvement was seen in the files released to researchers in 1985, due mainly to the inclusion of a box of tapes, videos and documents sent from the LADA branch at Van Nuys. This box contained evidence which went against the official version. The most graphic examples were the video reconstructions from 1968 and 1977, which prove that Sirhan could not have inflicted the wounds on Senator Kennedy. However, by using selected stills from the reconstructions, the official version was supported.
The coverup of the RFK assassination has been maintained because the facts are simply not known. Whereas the Warren Commission report was released the year following the JFK assassination, LAPD's "Summary Report" was not released until 1986. The files were released two years later. Both of these achievements were made despite strong LAPD/LADA resistance, for obvious reasons.
The RFK assassination was not investigated in by the House Select Commitee on Assassinations because of the seemingly open and shut nature of the case. Now that the facts are known, perhaps it is time that the RFK assassination was investigated. While the JFK assassination has reached the point where the answer is "Oswald might have done it or he might not have", there is no possible way that Sirhan could have inflicted the wounds on Senator Kennedy. All that is required is the official investigation.

I was worried somebody was going to try to correct me by bringing up the JFK thing..but I see everybody reads before they post :right:

[PAPA G]

i beleive it was a Teamster/Mafia hit, because they were pissed that he backed out of the deal to help get his brother JFK elected.

[Rufus Rhastus J]

I think the gummit and the FBI had something to do with it. I was just a 13 year old at the time but, even a dumb kid like me knew they were hideing too much stuff. it just was'nt right. Back then, we trusted more than we do now. Guess we were'nt so smart then, huh?:nod:

[dhermesc]

I place all the conspiracy theories in the same file with the JFK conspiracy, the "murder" of Princess Di, and Elvis Lives. Nobody wants to admit their "hero" was killed by wackos with a gun, drunk driving, or squeezing out a hard one while on the throne.

For the RFK and JFK conspiracies, for all the thought the claimed the "conspiritors" went through to plan the murders why do it in front of cameras, pick a nice quiet out of the way spot like Vince Foster had. Same for Princess Di, if the English government wanted her dead they could easily have made it look like a terrorist attack and built support for their own move into the middle east. As for Elvis, I think he served me pancakes at IHOP Sunday.

Got to add some glamour when heroes die, other wise they just fade away into the footnotes of history or some trivia game.

[NRAJOE]

LBJ had him "offed"...............

http://www.webcom.com/~lpease/collec...ations/rfk.htm

[Rave]

You know,back then a lot of folks suspected LBJ,they were certainly worlds apart and LBJ could be a real hardcase.

[ruger22com]

Kennedy (just like his big brother) messed with the wrong people. The mob.
It always has amazed me that there daddy (considering he made his fortune as a bootlegger) never taught them not to mess with these people. Now How the shooter actually was brought into the picture...that is a good question....and why he has never talked is also a good question, though I doubt the FBI did not push him too hard. They DO know who was behind it, and no better than to get in the middle of things.