RFK’s son slams police for exhibiting bloody clothes

The son of Robert F Kennedy, the brother of JFK who was assassinated in Los Angeles in 1968, has expressed his outrage at a police decision to exhibit his father's blood-spattered clothing in a "macabre publicity stunt" in Las Vegas.
                                                                                                       
Writing in the Los Angeles Times, Maxwell Taylor Kennedy criticised the LAPD for transporting his father's shirt, tie and jacket across state lines to the California Homicide Investigators Association conference in Las Vegas, where they were included in a display of never-before-seen artifacts from famous crime scenes.

Evidence from other infamous crimes and deaths, such as the Black Dahlia murders, the Mansons, Marilyn Monroe and OJ Simpson was also exhibited.
 
Kennedy says he requested the return of his father's items nearly a decade ago. "My request was refused by the district attorney's office," he writes. "The District Attorney promised, though, to keep the personal items with care and out of public view."

Los Angeles police have apologised. Chief Charlie Beck said: "The last thing we want to do is to traumatise a victim's family and I am very sensitive to that. But at the same time, we want to preserve the history of the city of Los Angeles and improve the quality and understanding about our homicide investigations."

Maxwell Kennedy, a former assistant district attorney, is unimpressed. He says Beck should remember he relies on crime victims to prosecute virtually every criminal: "He cannot long succeed if he continues to put victims' pain on display for publicity." ·