About this same time, J.D. Tippit was reportedly seen sitting in his police car at a Good Luck Oil Company (Gloco) gas station in Oak Cliff.
Transcripts of the Dictaphone belts of the Dallas police dispatcher indicated Officer J.D. Tippit was instructed to go to the central Oak Cliff area, and was to remain on the alert for any emergency. Oak Cliff was about four miles southwest from Dealey Plaza.
Records indicated a man by the name of Eugene Brodley was arrested a couple of minutes after the shooting in the Dal-Tex Building. The Dal-Tex Building was on the east of Houston just across the street from the TSBD on the corner of Houston and Elm. This was the same building where Abraham Zapruder had his dress factory. Police say Brodley was acting suspiciously (in what way was never disclosed) but after questioning he was released after he used a fictitious name (James Braden), and convinces the FBI, Secret Service and Dallas Police he was only making a phone call. (It was later learned Brodley spent the night of the 21st of November at the sleazy Little Havana Motel in Dallas. This, in and of itself, would not seem significant; however, Joe Camponella, who had strong ties with Carlos Mancini, owns the Little Havana. Carlos Mancini, as we know, was sitting in the Carousel Club on November the 21st talking with Jack Ruby. If Carlos Mancini had possible links to the Cosa Nostra, it is highly probable Brodley did too. Did Brodley actually direct the assassination?
An interesting report by a witness Laura Norton said she saw Lee Harvey Oswald make a phone call from a pay phone in the Clean and Wash Launderette at Davis and West Jefferson. The time was 12:47 p.m.
An officer radios the Police Dispatcher, “Has Governor Connelly been shot?” He got no response. He asks the question, “What are the police supposed to do at the Dallas Trade Mart?” Obviously, the Dallas police station was in a state of panic. The clock on the station wall shows the time: 12:49 p.m.
The Police Dispatcher received a radio call from J.D. Tippit, who stated he was at Lancaster and Eighth in central Oak Cliff. Dispatcher instructs him to “be at ready for any emergency that comes in.” Officer Tippit in patrol car number ten, radios he has moved as directed and will be available for any emergency. Checking his watch he noticed it was 12:52 p.m. By this time, the police radio, had broadcast several messages alerting the patrol officers to the suspect some said they saw at the scene of the assassination — a slender white male, about thirty years old, approximately five feet ten inches and weighing around 165 pounds. Does no one make the connection that Tippit, after roll call this morning, left to go on patrol in car Number Twenty-Five and is now responding to Headquarters in patrol car Number Ten!!
Five minutes before one o’clock the emergency room doctors and nurses at Parkland Hospital prepared Governor Connelly for surgery.
At the exact moment, the doctors are working on the Texas Governor over on the Oak Cliff side of the Houston Street viaduct at the Good Luck Oil Company (Gloco) service station five witnesses saw J.D. Tippit arrive at the Gloco station. For roughly five to ten minutes, he appeared to sit in his car and peered intently at the traffic as it crossed the bridge outbound from Dallas. Why was he there? No police dispatcher instructed Tippit to go to that location. Tippit seems to be watching for something or someone, the question was what? Or whom? The witnesses failed to see another car pull alongside Tippit’s car. A short, fat, man with curly black hair, dressed in a dark blue business suit leaves his car, opened the door and sat down on the passenger side of Officer Tippit’s car. Tippit and his passenger left Gloco and sped south on Lancaster. Three minutes later, at 12:58 p.m., Tippit answers his dispatcher and said he was at “Ninth and Jefferson”- a mile south of the Gloco Station, and less than a mile from Lee Harvey Oswald’s boarding house. He turned right on Jefferson Boulevard and stopped at the Top Ten Record Store a few minutes before 1:00 p.m. The storeowner and his clerk observed Tippit rush into the store and use the pay phone. He, apparently let the phone ring a couple of time, but without completing his call or speaking to store personnel Tippit slammed out the front door, jumped into his idling patrol car, and sped across Jefferson Boulevard. A couple of witnesses say he headed north. They say he was in such a hurry he ran a stop sign, turned right on Sunset and was last seen traveling at a high rate of speed east – one block from North Beckley. At this position, Tippit was now only two minutes from Oswald’s rooming house. Tippit drops off everyone’s grid for the next eight to ten minutes, where he goes no one has ever known.
It was not quite one o’clock; a priest was called for President Kennedy at Parkland Hospital. At this time, Lee Harvey Oswald was reported to have arrived at his rooming house. According to Earlene Rodgers, the housekeeper, he goes to his room. In a few seconds, a Dallas police car pulls up in front of the rooming house and taps its horn twice, in rapid succession. Demonstrating, Mrs. Rodgers said, “Beep-beep, short taps, close together, then the police car drove off. I went to the window and looked out, you see, I used to work for a policeman and sometimes they would come by and tell me something their wives wanted me to know, anyway, it was two policemen in uniform, but it wasn’t the ones I knew. Their police car was Number 170, and I believe that car was 106.” A report by the FBI in 1964 could not determine the reason for the police car beeping, nor could they identify whom the policemen might be. Their report speculated it might have been a police car watching to see if Oswald returned home.
Future Kennedy Assassination researcher’s scrutiny of the FBI report will show this made no sense whatsoever. No record existed indicating a police car was dispatched to Oswald’s address prior to 1:00 p.m.; moreover, if the car had been watching the house the policemen would have seen Oswald’s entry. Why not just get out and arrest him? Why blow the horn two times and leave? Does the tooting of the horn purport some type of signal to Oswald? However, this does not answer the crucial mystery: the Dallas police department states they have no police car Numbered 106!! Was Mrs. Rodgers lying, mistaken or were the police engineering a cover-up?
Investigations by assassination researchers have virtually established the only police car that should have been in the vicinity of Beckley Avenue was Officer J.D. Tippit’s cruiser. Another theory has also been thrown out: the person who stops and signals with the car horn in front of Oswald’s rooming house is actually Assistant D. A. Edward Hill – who was known to have right-wing tendencies. A few minutes after the murder of J. D. Tippit Hill along with Officer Buster Alexander, who is riding with him, will be the second police car to arrive at the Tippit murder scene. A few minutes later they show up at the Texas Theater where Oswald is arrested; Officer Edward Hill is also known as a right wing activist and more importantly – he was a friend of Jack Ruby. The day of the assassination Hill was in charge of the search at the TSBD when the rifle and spent cartridges from the rifle were discovered.
At first the officers examining the rifle, which had been hidden behind some boxes of schoolbooks, determined it to be a German Army 7.92 millimeter Mauser. Officer Hill was responsible for maintaining evidence custody of this rifle along with the two spent shells found on the floor and the one live shell still in the rifle. Interestingly, five days after the assassination Captain Fritz of the Dallas Police Department will turn in a third empty shell casing he said he found on the sixth floor of TSBD. This seems downright convenient that this third cartridge will now back up the “official” story of three shots. Why did Captain Fritz pick up an empty shell casing lying on the sixth floor, and if he actually picked the shell up, why didn’t he turn it in immediately? Why would he wait five days to “discover” it in his pocket? FBI fingerprint analysis will later show only the fingerprint of Captain Fritz, Oswald’s prints were not on the empty shell casing.
It has also been suggested J. D. Tippit and Detective Roscoe White could have been together in the same police car. This theory goes that Detective White had told Officer Tippit it was imperative they pick up a person of importance and take him to the Bluebird Airport. Tippet’s patrol car pulls up beside Oswald, Tippet gets out of his sq
uad car and draws his revolver; As Tippit begins to walk around the front of his cruiser White fires his revolver three times and kills Tippit. Before fleeing White walks up and shoots point blank into the rear of Tippit’s head, he then flees in one direction, and the person everyone says is Oswald heads toward the Texas Theater. Interestingly, White is a short, fat, white guy with curly black hair.
Lee Harvey Oswald has changed shirts, leaves the rooming house zipping up his jacket. Walking out the door he checked his watch: 12:59 p.m.
Doctor John York at Parkland Hospital informed the First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, “I’m sorry Madam your husband the President, has sustained a fatal wound.” President Kennedy was officially pronounced dead by Doctor Clark and Doctor York at 1:00 p.m.
At about the same time, calls came in to the police station from neighbors close to the private Redbird Airport reporting a twin-engine airplane was acting suspiciously. It was said to be sitting on the grass at the end of the runway revving up its engines. This has been going on for some time. They want the police to put a stop to the noise they cannot hear the Presidential news on their television sets.
Oswald was reportedly seen walking west on 10th Street by Jimmy Burt and William Arthur Smith. Mr. Burt says the time was exactly 1:01 p.m. The Report of the Warren Commission will later state Oswald was walking east! This puts him only a block and a half east of the Tippit shooting and three blocks west of Jack Ruby’s apartment at 223 South Ewing Avenue.
Mrs. Earlene Rodgers saw Oswald at 1:04 p.m. standing on the street at the corner of Zang and Beckley. This corner was directly in front of his rooming house. The Texas Theater is over one mile away. Obviously, Mrs. Rodgers time or the time stated by both Mr. Burt and Mr. Smith cannot be correct. One of the sighting times was wrong, or both of the times are wrong! Or possible could there have been two Lee Harvey Oswalds?
An employee at the Texas Theater heard someone come in and head upstairs to the balcony. The clock in the lobby was 1:10 p.m.
At that exact time, Officer J. D. Tippit, supposedly saw a man matching Oswald’s description walking east along Tenth Street. Tippit stops his car and calls for the man to come over to the police cruiser.
T. J. Bowling was driving his daughter west on Tenth Street at 1:10 p.m. He noticed a crowd gathering around a police vehicle, he got out to see what was happening. If Earlene Rodgers saw Oswald at the bus stop at 1:04, he cannot be the murderer; it takes a minimum of twelve minutes to walk from the rooming house on North Beckley to the corner of Tenth and Patton.
A Secret Service agent informed Vice President Johnson, “President Kennedy is dead.” Johnson turns to Lady Bird and says, “Make note of the time.” She noted 1:10 p.m.
Officer J. D. Tippit was gunned down at the corner of Tenth and Patton Street. It was 1:14 p.m. Tippit had stopped a man matching the police dispatcher’s description walking on Tenth Street, called the man to come over to the police car. The man leaned over to the window on the passenger side and talked to Officer Tippit. Tippit steps out of his patrol car and was shot four times and killed. One shot was point blank into the back of his head. Thirteen persons witnessed the Tippit murder, but only two could reconstruct the events. Of the two, only one Helen Markson, under pressure at the Dallas Police station, finally picked Oswald out of five different lineup attempts. The second witness never picked Oswald out of a lineup. The Warren Commission established the time of the Tippit murder as 1:16 p.m.
T. J. Bowling ran up to Officer Tippit’s car, grabs the police radio’s microphone and shouts, “There’s been a shooting here... it’s a police officer, somebody shot him! Send help!!” This was the first indication Officer J.D. Tippit had been murdered.
Witnesses will state the gunman ran down South Patton, and turned right onto East Jefferson Boulevard. Two used car salesmen gave chase and followed him behind the Texaco service station on the corner of Jefferson and Crawford. It appeared capture was imminent, but the police were diverted to a false alarm sighting at a nearby library.
At 1:19 p.m. an ambulance with no lettering on the doors arrived at the scene of the J. D. Tippit murder and immediately whisked the body away, supposedly, to the Methodist Hospital, but it never arrived. The next report of Officer Tippit’s body was at the Gober Funeral Chapel.
Dallas Police Captain Barney Westbrook was given a black billfold supposedly taken from the ground beside the police car where Tippit had been killed. He turned the wallet over to FBI Agent Barrett. The billfold contained a driver’s license, for Lee Harvey Oswald. This was strange, Lee Harvey Oswald does not know how to drive an automobile, and how unbelievably dumb would he have to be to leave his billfold, containing his identification at the scene of a murder. Employees at the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) will state a week after the Tippit murder a report of a driver’s license issued to Lee Oswald will turn up in their records. They further say, the Department of Public Safety file on Lee Oswald will be pulled, and it is never seen again. This was witnessed by at least seven employees of the DPS.
Police Chief Curry, with an escort of guards, drove Vice President Johnson and wife to Love Field.
Johnson arrived and boarded Air Force One at Love Field where he was sworn in as the 36th President of the United States. One of the observers notes the time: 1:35 p.m.
As the new President was being sworn in police at the scene of the Tippit murder broadcast the shooter was carrying a dark finish, automatic pistol. Another policeman, a veteran with considerable weapon experience sent a message back to police headquarters, “The shells recovered at the scene indicate the suspect was armed with an .38 caliber automatic rather than a pistol.”
At 1:43 p.m. Lee Harvey Oswald left the Texas theater balcony, walked down the steps to the concession stand and bought a bag of popcorn. From the concession stand he entered the main floor of the theater and sat in a seat next to a pregnant woman. There are only seven people in the nine hundred-seat theater; he could have found a seat almost anywhere. After enduring this un-invited guest for a moment or two, she got up, and left, she was never seen again, and her testimony was never taken. Oswald left his seat, walked around the theater, and stopped to sit next to at least three other patrons. Was he looking for someone?
Captain Westbrook and FBI Agent Barrett arrive at the Texas Theater and enter through the rear entrance minutes later. It must be assumed Westbrook and Barrett could be looking for “Lee Harvey Oswald” - identified from the driver’s license of the billfold discovered at the scene of the J. D. Tippit murder.
Johnny Handy, manager of the Handy Shoe Store, on Jefferson Avenue, became suspicious when a man, he believed to be the person the police were seeking, slipped into his shoe store and would duck every time a police siren passed. Handy had followed this man into the Texas Theater. After a cursory check of the theater, he asks the cashier, Julia Portal to call the police, “I think he is still here,” he said.
At a quarter until two o’clock Police Dispatch sends all cars to the Texas Theater saying, “Have information a suspect in the Kennedy shooting just went into the Texas Theater. Suspect is said to be hiding in the balcony”
George Applin, one of the seven patrons in the theater, later stated to the Warren Commission he was sitting in the center section, six rows from the back. He testified he noticed another man sitting in the very back of the theater seemingly unconcerned with the movie but this unknown man was intently watching as Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested. Years later he admitted to a local newspaper the man he saw that day was Jack Ruby. Asked why he took so long to say anything, “I know what happened to a lot of the other witnesses. I did not want the same to happen to me.”
Lieutenant Dayly, of the Dallas Police Crime Lab, left the TSBD, with the alleged murder weapon used to assassinate President Kennedy. It was described as an eight millimeter German Mauser when, if fact, later it became a 6.5 millimeter Italian Carcano. Persons astute in military weapons and those policemen were all WWII and Korean War veterans, easily would
have recognized the differences in the two weapons.
After a brief struggle, Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested in the Texas Theater. One of the officers notes the time was 1:51 p.m.
The arresting officers along with Oswald drove to the basement of Police Headquarters on Houston Street arriving at 2:00 p.m.
Dallas detectives begin the first interrogation of Oswald. He also asked and was granted permission to call Mrs. Ruth Paine concerning legal assistance. He called Mrs. Paine at 4:20 p.m.
Fifteen minutes later Oswald was taken for the first of several lineups he will be subjected to.
Five minutes past five o’clock Air Force One landed at Andrews Air Force base with now President Lyndon Johnson and the body of the slain President John Kennedy.
A black civilian hearse arrived at the rear entrance of Bethesda Naval Hospital with an unadorned metal casket. Six men in dark business suits were guarding it. It was said they were Secret Service. Persons at the Bethesda morgue are told it was the body of JFK. One attendant remembered the time was 5:45 p.m. The metal casket was brought into the Bethesda morgue where doctors are told it was President Kennedy’s body wrapped in a black rubber body bag. There was no brain inside the head.
Ten minutes later a gray Navy ambulance with the bronze Dallas coffin accompanied by FBI men arrived at the front door of Bethesda Naval Hospital, and Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy follows it into the hospital. The FBI agents were not allowed to enter.
Why was the arrival of two corpses at Bethesda, both identified as President John Kennedy, never investigated? Officer Tippit was approximately the same size as the President and bore a striking facial resemblance to him also. Was Tippit in one casket and the President in the other? This was never investigated.
Justification For Killing Page 47
