Parole for Sirhan sends wrong message at wrong time
Last week’s recommendation by two California parole officials that the man who murdered Robert F. Kennedy should be released from prison was quirky, even by California standards. Over the decades, 15 separate parole boards have considered Sirhan Sirhan’s claim that “justice” required that he be set free. Each rejected it, most recently in 2016. Though there is no public record of last week’s hearing, which produced a sharp reversal on the supposed basis that something unspecified had changed, reports of disjointed ruminations by the two officials did not inspire confidence in their recommendation
There was plenty of reason for head-scratching. The man who staked out Los Angeles’ Ambassador Hotel to find the ideal vantage spot from which to put a bullet in Kennedy’s brain knew exactly what he should say to the parole officials. He told them that he had been attending Tai Chi, Alcoholics Anonymous and — wait for it — anger management classes. The parole officials pronounced themselves impressed.
And not only that, Sirhan gave them his word that he had changed. “You have my pledge,” he assured them. “I will always look to safety and peace and non-violence.”
Now in his late seventies, it is reasonable to conclude that, for purely statistical reasons, Sirhan is unlikely to murder anyone else. But that doesn’t end the analysis, any more than do broad statements about the virtue of forgiveness.
In June 1968, with the oneyear anniversary of the Six Day War triggered by the imminent invasion of Israel by neighbors pledged to her destruction just days away, the Palestinian-born Jordanian citizen decided to assassinate Kennedy to make a political statement.
“Robert F. Kennedy must be assassinated before June 5, 1968,” Sirhan wrote in his journal. “My determination to eliminate RFK is becoming more and more of an unshakable obsession.”
After first practicing the murder at a firing range, he shot Kennedy and five other innocent people in the hotel kitchen, and it took a group of men standing next to Kennedy to pry the murder weapon from Sirhan as Kennedy lay on the floor holding a rosary placed in his hands by a bus boy, blood seeping from his head. Asked during his trial whether he had killed Kennedy, Sirhan said “Yes.” Asked later why, Sirhan knew precisely. “I can explain it,” he said. “I did it for my country.”
Over the years, however, the supposedly profoundly remorseful Sirhan, whom we are told takes “responsibility” for the murder, has hedged, dodged and weaved with the best of them, arousing no skepticism at all on the part of the two parole officials. In 2016, asked by an official to state what he had done, here was Sirhan’s acceptance of responsibility. “I was there and I supposedly shot a gun,” he said.
“I am asking you to tell me what you’re responsible for,” pressed the official.
“It’s a good question,” said Mr. Remorse. “Legally speaking, I’m not guilty of anything.”
Sirhan’s evasive formulations fall somewhat short of convincing acceptance of moral responsibility for murder, and for the pain inflicted on Kennedy’s family and the American people.
His latest: He regrets that the killing occurred “if I did in fact do that.”
It is one thing to forgive, and another to be jobbed. While it’s true that any murder is an atrocity, this one was particularly atrocious. And at a time when America’s historical revulsion at political violence has eroded and the dangers of that erosion are real, the cavalier release of the killer who decided to eliminate a leader with whom he disagreed seems sloppy, and ill-advised.
“Let there be no mistake,” wrote Joseph P. Kennedy II, Robert Kennedy’s eldest son. “(Sirhan’s) release will be celebrated by those who believe that political disagreements can be solved by a gun.”
The recommendation to set Sirhan free is worse than careless. It is exactly the wrong message to send to America at exactly the wrong time.