Free Republic

Just over fifty-five years ago, on June 5, 1968, Senator Robert F. Kennedy was gunned down in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, shortly after triumphing in the California and South Dakota Presidential primaries. ... “Sirhan confessed to the murder,” denoted Kennedy. “He pled guilty. His story is that he has no memory of it, and he stuck with that story for 60 years. But there was a man standing, one of my father’s best friends, standing beside him when my father was shot. And his name is Paul Schrade.” “And the first shot that Sirhan fired...

The man who fatally shot presidential candidate Robert Kennedy nearly half a century ago faces a parole board in California. Sirhan Sirhan, 71, will have his 15th such hearing at the Richard J Donovan Correctional Facility near San Diego on Wednesday. The Palestinian-born Sirhan is serving a life sentence for opening fire on the political scion at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on 5 June 1968. He has denied having any recollection of the killing, but has also said he targeted Kennedy because of his support for Israel. Sirhan was last denied parole in 2011, when the board ruled...

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Next month's opening of the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools will be auspicious for a reason other than its both storied and infamous history as the former Ambassador Hotel, where the Democratic presidential contender was assassinated in 1968. With an eye-popping price tag of $578 million, it will mark the inauguration of the nation's most expensive public school ever. The K-12 complex to house 4,200 students has raised eyebrows across the country as the creme de la creme of "Taj Mahal" schools, $100 million-plus campuses boasting both architectural panache and deluxe amenities. "There's no more of...

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge has ruled that the Los Angeles Unified School District can proceed with its plans to demolish most of the historic Ambassador Hotel and build a $318-million campus, attorneys said Monday. The Los Angeles Conservancy and a coalition of local organizations had filed suit after the school board voted in October to build a facility for 4,200 kindergarten through high school students on the 24-acre property where movie stars, politicians and royalty once mingled and where Sen. Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1968. The suit contended that the district had failed to comply...

Kennedy killer wants hotel to stay By Arthur Spiegelman in Los AngelesDecember 3, 2004THE lawyer for Robert Kennedy's assassin, Sirhan Sirhan, has gone to court to stop the demolition of the hotel where the late senator was shot dead, saying that there is evidence in its walls that can prove his client innocent. Attorney Lawrence Teeter claims the 60-year-old Sirhan was set up as a dupe in the 1968 assassination, despite shooting at Kennedy in front of witnesses. Sirhan is serving a life sentence for the crime. Mr Teeter filed suit this week in Los Angeles Superior Court to...