Art Placencia was a 21-year-old rookie Los Angeles police officer with only a few weeks on the job when he got the biggest call of his career June 5, 1968.
He and his partner Travis White were in a squad car patrolling the Rampart Division when the call came in — "All units. Ambulance shooting. 3400 Wilshire."
The location was the Ambassador Hotel where Robert F. Kennedy had been celebrating his victory in the California presidential primary.
The officers raced to the scene.
At the hotel entrance, Placencia remembered hearing a man in a tuxedo yell, "This way! He's over here! He's over here!"
Placencia and his partner were led to a kitchen pantry packed with people yelling, screaming, crying.
A man had another man in a chokehold on a pantry table. A second man lay on the man, restraining him. A third man held the man's legs.
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"That's him, officer! He's the one!" Placencia recalled hearing.
Placencia had no idea of the significance of his response to that call that night. He and White were the first officers to arrive and take Sirhan Sirhan into custody after he fatally shot Robert F. Kennedy, the popular younger brother of a slain president who had just won California's democratic primary. Placencia recalled that moment on Tuesday, 50 years ago after the assassination.
It wasn't until after Placencia had Sirhan in the police car on the way to the station that he learned who had been shot.
"I was too young to realize what I had just become a part of — 'My God, Bobby Kennedy has been shot and your handcuffs were on the guy who shot him,'" Placencia, now 71, said.
After cuffing Sirhan, Placencia and his partner escorted their man through a terrified and angry crowd. He said it was like walking from a hornet's nest to another one as he thrusted with his baton, pushing people back, making a beeline down the stairs. Placencia said he read him his rights from his field notebook ... "You have the right to remain silent ..."
Sirhan looked down, saying nothing.
Placencia thought maybe he didn't speak English so he jabbed him in the mouth with his flashlight then read him his rights in Spanish.
"I'll remember 3909," Placencia's badge number, were the only words Sirhan spoke, Placencia recalled.
On the drive, Placencia asked the man sitting in the front passenger seat who got shot.
"Bobby Kennedy," was the reply.
"By the way, who are you?" Placencia asked the man.
"I'm Jesse Unruh."
Unruh, Kennedy's campaign manager, had hopped into the squad car, swept up into following officers after the arrest.
At the station, Placencia emptied Sirhan's pockets — a $100 bill, some loose change, a set of car keys, and an unused .22 caliber long bullet, one that belonged to the gun used to kill Kennedy.
The gun, an eight shot .22 revolver that used .22 caliber long bullets, was later walked into the front desk of the station by a witness. Placencia bagged up the evidence and turned it and Sirhan over to detectives.
It was the last time Placencia saw the suspect until court. Sirhan was convicted and remains in prison to this day.
Placencia went on to have a long career at the LAPD, promoted to detective, later to sergeant and detective supervisor. He witnessed no bigger event in his 39 year career.
Today he's an adjunct professor at East Los Angeles College, teaching administration of justice. Other than telling his story over the years, he doesn't think too deeply about that night.
"I just happened to be in the right place, at the right time," he said. "At any given time you could just be driving around and the next thing you know you could be part of history."
