LOS ANGELES: Senator Robert F. Kennedy was in an “extremely critical” condition after a three-hour emergency operation during which a bullet was removed from his brain, one of his aides said. The doctors said the next 15 to 36 hours would be a “very critical” period.

Sen. Kennedy was shot at 20 minutes past midnight local time (0720 GMT) Wednesday [June 5] as he was going to the Hotel Ambassador kitchen from the ballroom here after a jubilant crowd of supporters acclaimed his presidential primary election victory over Sen. Eugene McCarthy.

As Sen. Kennedy went behind the ballroom to shake hands with the people, a man stepped out of the crowd and fired eight shots over the head of the people around the Senator. He missed six, but the seventh one pierced through his right ear and the skull and was lodged in the brain. The other hit his shoulder.

The shooting came four and a half years after the assassination in Dallas of Sen. Kennedy’s elder brother President John F. Kennedy.

The assailant was seized by Los Angeles football player Rosie Greer, who disarmed the man and handed the gun to fellow Negro athlete Rafer Johnson, who passed it on to a policeman. The gunman was later identified as Sirhan Sirhan, 23, who has a brother who lives nearby in Pasadena, California.

Published in Dawn, June 6th, 2018