Eyewitness Comes Forward, “Sirhan Sirhan Did Not Assassinate RFK” [View all]

The FreeThoughtProject.com | Andrew Emett on February 13, 2016



Despite the fact that Sirhan Sirhan shot him in the head nearly 50 years ago, Paul Schrade attended the convicted assassin’s parole hearing this week to both forgive Sirhan and defend the shooter’s innocence in the assassination of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy. After decades of research into the assassination and witnessing the event first-hand, Schrade continues to assert that Sirhan physically could not have fired the fatal bullet that killed Kennedy.

Shortly after midnight on June 5, 1968, two months after the assassination of MLK, Kennedy entered the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles when Sirhan stepped towards him and opened fire. While Kennedy shook hands with the hotel kitchen staff, Schrade stood six to eight feet behind him. As the labor chairman of Kennedy’s presidential campaign, Schrade followed the senator through the kitchen until Sirhan emerged in front of Kennedy and shot Schrade about an inch below his hairline in the center of his forehead. The bullet struck Schrade’s skull but didn’t enter his brain.

Standing three feet in front of Kennedy, Sirhan fired a second bullet that missed completely. Hotel maîtres d’ Karl Uecker and Edward Minasian grabbed for Sirhan’s gun and began choking him, but not before he could fire the remaining six bullets from his .22-caliber revolver, wounding four more people.

Although Sirhan’s pistol only held eight bullets, four shots struck Kennedy while another five bullets wounded others. Hours after the shooting, FBI Agent William Bailey found two more bullets in the center divider of the pantry door frame. After analyzing an audio recording of the assassination, audio expert Phil Van Praag determined that 13 shots had been fired, indicating a second gunman...snip

...Less than three months after the assassination, the LAPD incinerated thousands of documents and pieces of evidence related to Kennedy’s death. Besides destroying physical evidence, including door jambs and ceiling tiles taken from the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel, the LAPD also burned 2,140 police photographs...snip

Full Article: http://thefreethoughtproject.com/witness-asserts-sirhan-assassinate-rfk/



Robert Kennedy Assassination Photos Burned

New York Times April 21, 1988

SACRAMENTO, Calif., April 20— California has released voluminous files on the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, including a document showing that 2,410 photographs that were evidence in the case were destroyed that year. A scholar who pushed for release of the files says the destruction is ''deeply suspicious'' and should be investigated.

''Far and away, the blinding central fact in this event is the unbelievable destruction of these photographs,'' said Greg Stone, a University of Wisconsin political scientist who has devoted years to studying the assassination. ''This performance would be a disgrace in a routine auto accident,'' he said of the Los Angeles police, Mr. Stone's comments came after the California Secretary of State, March Fong Eu, opened the long-secret files to the public Tuesday and displayed significant items of evidence for reporters. She held aloft a boxed .22-caliber gun used by Sirhan Sirhan, who was convicted of assassinating Senator Kennedy on June 5, 1968, after Mr. Kennedy's victory in the state's Democratic Presidential primary.

Among the documents displayed was a certificate showing that 2,410 police photographs in the assassination case were burned on Aug. 21, 1968. The state's chief archivist, John Burns, who catalogued the file for release, speculated that the destroyed photos could have been duplicates but said the files had no such statement. Investigation Is Urged...snip more: http://www.nytimes.com/1988/04/21/us/robert-kennedy-assassination-photos-burned.html