by Jim Bishop
The building was being shaken down for the second time. Policemen and deputies were on every floor, like armed treasure hunters, studying each step on the stairwells, examining the roof, on hands and knees in the small attic spaces above the seventh floor, shouting to each other across the dusty barn-like spaces, overturning cartons and standing on boxes to study the areas over the ceiling sprinkler system. Sheriff Decker was on the sloping lawn below the front windows, listening to Captain Will Fritz.
Some witnesses were escorted across the square to the sheriff’s office; others were incoherent. Fresh groups, alerted by radio and television, were cluttering the square, listening to the police, offering suggestions, and conducting interrogations of their own. Motorcycles were on their sides in varying attitudes of disarray. Cops in helmets tried to maintain the flow of traffic on Elm, Main, and Houston. The squawk of police radios scattered metallic words across the lawn. An airliner, making the turn for final approach to Love Airport, emitted a subdued scream as the pigeons, in fatigue, gave up and stood along the roof edge watching policemen.
Luke Mooney, deputy sheriff, was on the sixth floor. He was one of many. In the southeast corner, he noticed that the boxes were piled higher than elsewhere and, to squeeze between them, he had to turn sideward and hold his breath. Once inside the little “fort,” his breathing stopped automatically. At his feet, he saw three empty rifle shells. His eyes saw some low-lying boxes which could be used as a rifle rest. There was a diagonal crease in one which pointed out the window.
The first thing that Luke Mooney decided was not to touch anything. He leaned out the sixth-floor window and saw his superior, Sheriff Decker, and Fritz of Dallas Homicide, standing below. Mooney shouted, but no one heard him. He whistled between his teeth and shouted again. Both men looked up. “Get the crime lab officers,” he shouted. “I got the location spotted.”
Mooney kept the other policemen away from the area. In time, Fritz arrived. The Crime Laboratory, a mobile unit, had been summoned from headquarters on Main Street. The deputy sheriff was excited. Having made his find, he observed everything. The pile of boxes was high enough to serve as a private screen against prying eyes from anywhere on the sixth floor. The small boxes which had been placed inside, on the floor, were just high enough, with the window one-third open, to serve as an assassin’s roost. A man could sit on the one nearest the heating pipes, while resting the gun on the one near the window, and looking diagonally down Elm Street toward the overpass. He would have an open, commanding view everywhere except as the motorcade passed the broad tree below. The only open space in the tree was furnished by the “V” of two main branches. Mooney was still dwelling on the subject when ranking officers and their entourages descended on him.
Channel One was busy with traffic about the “find,” but Channel Two remained mystified. At 1:11 P.M. Assistant Chief Charles O. Batchelor, at the Trade Mart, asked once more: “Find out any further information at Parkland about the condition of the President, whether he can be here or not. Mr. Crull is standing by and needs to know immediately if you can find out so we can do something to these people out here.” One minute later, Inspector Sawyer came on with a bit of misinformation: “On the third floor of this book company down here, we found empty rifle hulls and it looked like the man had been here for some time. We are checking it out now.”
Lieutenant J. C. Day, with twenty-three years of police work behind him, was on the scene with his Crime Laboratory within a couple of minutes. He and his men had a Speed Graphic camera, dusting brushes for fingerprints, an array of technical equipment in the “bus,” and the acumen to preserve a chain of evidence intact. The majority of witnesses to the assassination had insisted that there had been three shots. Day now had three empty shells to support this contention. Across the street in the sheriff’s office, three Negro employees began to tell the story of how they had been watching the parade from the fifth floor, when they heard those shots and listened to the empty shells drop on the floor.
Will Fritz said that he was going back to headquarters to check up on a man named Lee Harvey Oswald. He stood in an area of the sixth floor, the cowboy hat back off his forehead, watching Lieutenant Day and his men photograph the empty shells, lift them by the ends, and dust them for fingerprints. There were none, and Day initialed the hulls and placed them in a container. The cartons around the window were examined, and palm prints were made.
Other policemen were working the sixth floor. The remains of a chicken sandwich had been found. Someone else found a roll of brown paper, fashioned as a long slender cone. It could have been used to hold a rifle or something like curtain rods. Deputy Eugene Boone yelled: “Here is the gun!” The others ran to him. He was near the staircase leading down, farthest away from the window where the shells had been found. “Here is the gun!” When policemen reached Boone, some could not see the rifle. It was standing upright between two triple rows of cartons, squeezed tight.
Captain Fritz watched Day’s men photograph it, then lift it from its position without marring the chance of obtaining fingerprints. Day knew, after a glance at the roughness of the wood in the stock of the cheap gun, that it would not hold fingerprints. However, the barrel might. It had a canvas sling on the underside and a cheap four-power Japanese scope on top of the barrel. When the Crime Laboratory finished its work, Fritz pointed the rifle at the ceiling, pulled the chamber open, and a fourth shell rattled to the floor. Some of the policemen, studying the contour of the gun, murmured: “Mauser.” Boone nodded. “Mauser,” he said.
Fritz was becoming increasingly interested in the “boy” who worked on this floor—the missing one. He wanted to start by checking the police records on Lee Harvey Oswald. Then he would send officers to Oswald’s home at 2515 West Fifth Street, Irving. The captain could have lifted a phone and asked the police of Irving to pick up Oswald, provided, of course, that he was home waiting for police.
The assassin became aimless and languid. He walked south a few streets, then east a few, then south, then east. It was not a way to get back to downtown Dallas; it was not a way to get a bus to leave Dallas. Lee Harvey Oswald had passed Davis, the last street which might have brought him back to Marina at Irving, Texas. He was now in a rundown area of clapboard houses, faded roofs, weedy lawns, and used car lots.
The flagstone sidewalks were tilted and broken. The sun was high and hot and there were few people on the street. He walked down Crawford, turned left onto Tenth, and went toward Patton. Oswald was still on Tenth, crossing Patton, when he sensed a car in low gear behind him. Behind the wheel was Officer J. D. Tippit, the policeman who “moonlighted” two jobs. He was a dark-haired, good-looking man with a strong jaw and a slow, genial manner.
The cop was off his own beat—78—because Channel One had pulled so many Oak Cliff police cars into downtown Dallas. They were looking for a 25-to 30-year-old male wearing a work jacket and slacks, medium height, slender, black hair or brown. The nearest Tippit had seen to anyone of that description was this man walking ahead of him. Tippit had spent enough years on the force to know that the chances of nabbing the right man in a sprawling city of over one million persons will always be small. In truth, having stopped some persons in error, Tippit had long since become accustomed to opening such conversations politely. Had he been a trigger hysteric, he would have pulled to a stop behind his man and left the car with his gun drawn.
The right front window was open. Patrolman Tippit pulled up to the curb as his quarry completed crossing Patton. Whatever he said caused Lee Harvey Oswald to bend down on the curbside and respond to Tippit’s questions. The conversation may have been unsatisfactory. Oswald seldom cared to converse with anyone. Tippit decided to get out of the car, possibly to ask additional questions and maybe to frisk the man. This one had a gun in his belt.
The few people abroad in the area became interested in the police car and the pedestrian. A hundred feet behind them, parked on Patton, William Scoggins, a taxi driver, watched them from acr
oss an empty lot. Helen Markham, on the opposite corner of Tenth and Patton, turned to watch. Domingo Benavides was driving his pickup truck in the opposite direction on Tenth and slowed it to a walk, twenty-five feet in front of the police car.
Tippit was in no hurry. He got out on the driver’s side. Oswald watched from across the hood. J. D. Tippit made two steps. The assassin yanked the snub-nosed revolver from his belt and fired rapidly across the car. There were little flickers in the sunlight and a succession of explosive sounds rolled through the neighborhood like tumbling bowling pins. Patrolman Tippit was hit four times. He began to crumple slowly, and, as he fell on his belly beside the front wheel of the car, he managed to get his gun from its holster. He fell on it face down and his head hit the macadam. The uniform cap rolled off his head. He had about fifteen seconds to live and he spent it trying to say something. The mouth kept whispering to the pavement but nothing could be understood.
The cab driver was eating a sandwich behind the wheel. At once, Scoggins got out and crouched on the left side of the vehicle as he saw Oswald turn back across the open lot, coming his way. Mrs. Markham began to shriek and ran across the street to the policeman. The woman became rigid with hysteria. She held her fists against the sides of her face and roared: “He shot him! He is dead! Call the police!” There was a small frame apartment house facing the police car. Inside, two young sisters, married to brothers named Davis, had adjoining apartments. They were having a nap with two small children when the shots were heard.
They got up and stared in wonderment through a screen door. Lee Harvey Oswald was cutting across their lawn, going back toward Patton, holding a gun pointed upward and yanking empty shells from it. He dropped them in the weedy grass. He was reloading as he passed Scoggins, and the taxi driver heard him mutter: “Poor dumb cop.” Oswald’s marksmanship at close range was good. He had hit Tippit in the temple, in the middle of the forehead, drilled two shots into the chest, and missed with the fifth shot. One hit a uniform button and carried it inside the body. Vaguely Domingo Benavides remembered that he was out in his pickup truck to help a man whose car had a damaged carburetor. It seemed mad to be sitting in the truck trying to think of the type of carburetor when a policeman was dying in his own blood, a woman was shrieking, and people were running. He just couldn’t remember the make of that carburetor.
Mrs. Markham, a waitress due to begin work at the Eat Well Restaurant at 2:30 P.M., found she could recall nothing about herself but everything about the shooting. She saw great gouts of dark blood pumping rhythmically from the policeman’s forehead, but she couldn’t hear her own screaming. A used car dealer and his helper watched Oswald loping down Patton toward them and they said: “What’s going on?” The assassin kept trotting down the sidewalk toward Jefferson. He was not running, and his gun was no longer in his hands. One salesman, Ted Callaway, watched Oswald go by and he told another man, B. D. Searcy: “Keep an eye on that guy. Follow him.” Searcy watched Oswald make a right turn on Jefferson, a main shopping street. “Follow him, hell,” he said. “That man will kill you. He has a gun.”
Callaway ran to the dead policeman, got the gun from under his body, and rode around Jefferson with Scoggins, the taxi driver, looking for the killer. Channel One, using the services of dispatchers Hulse and Jackson, was almost back to normal traffic when, at 1:16 P.M., they heard a voice say: “Hello, police operator . . .” Hulse said: “Go ahead, go ahead, citizen using the police . . .” Citizen: “We’ve had a shooting out here.” Hulse said: “Where’s it at?” There was no answer.
The citizen did not know how to use the police radio. Hulse called again: “The citizen using police radio . . .” Citizen: “On Tenth Street.” Dispatcher: “What location on Tenth Street?” Citizen: “Between Marsalis and Beckley. It’s a police officer. Somebody shot him.” There were voices in the background. Citizen, correcting himself: “What’s this? 404 Tenth Street.” Dispatcher Jackson knew at once that it had to be J. D. Tippit. He had last heard from this man eight minutes ago, less than a half mile from the place of a shooting. Jackson: “Seventy-eight.” This was Tippit’s number. He did not reply.
Citizen: “You got that? It’s in a police car numbered ten.” Jackson: “Seventy-eight.” The citizen was becoming hysterical: “Hello, police operator. Did you get that? A police officer, 510 East Jefferson.” This was another incorrect address. Jackson: “Signal 19 (a shooting) involving a police officer, 510 East Jefferson.” The citizen heard it. He said: “Thank you” and was advised to remain off the air. Within two minutes, the police had the correct location—Tenth Street and Patton—and squad cars roared into the area from all directions.
Officer Nick McDonald, a moon-faced man with dark skin and a high forehead was listening, almost absentmindedly, to the radio traffic at the School Book Depository building. He was working with his partner, T. R. Gregory, and they watched the Traffic division try to keep the curiosity seekers out of Dealey Plaza. The day now was summery and the patrolmen in the street were hotter than the weather, blowing whistles, diverting drivers, trying to prevent family cars from parking. McDonald had looked for an assignment at the School Book Depository, but the building was seething with cops.
The radio came on and Channel One announced, in the flat, toneless manner of police dispatchers, that word from Parkland was that President Kennedy had just expired. A moment later Nick McDonald heard the excited voice of a stranger announcing that a policeman had been shot. When he heard the area of the crime, he said to Gregory: “That’s Tippit. We’re not doing any good here. Let’s go up to Tenth Street.” On the way, they heard an additional report: that a suspect had been seen running into the basement of the public library at Marsalis and Jefferson. “Let’s go to the library,” said McDonald. In the back of the car, the two men had a loaded shotgun. They brought it up front.
Lyndon Johnson ordered the Secret Service to get him “and my people” to the plane. He still wanted endorsement for his actions, and he ordered Rufus Youngblood to go up the hall and ask Kenneth O’Donnell if he should use Air Force One. The agent returned and reported that “O’Donnell says yes.”* The President suggested that the party leave in unmarked cars. Whether the assassination plot was large or small, he did not want to have his wife risk her life with him, so he ordered her to ride in another vehicle. The Secret Service got in touch with Chief Curry and asked for unmarked cars. Kilduff said: “After you leave, I’ll make the announcement.” Rufus Youngblood had sent Agent Lem Johns out front to requisition some automobiles. He said: “Mr. President, if we’re leaving now, I wish you’d stick close to me.” Johnson was pressed between Youngblood and Kilduff. He kept glancing over their heads to his petite wife to reassure her that it was going to be all right. Agent Youngblood also had asked Johnson to keep his head below window level when he got into the car.
The President said, “Let’s go,” and the party whirled out of the area at top walking speed. To keep up, Mrs. Johnson had to run between Secret Service agents. Out front, Agent Lem Johns had three unmarked cars and three drivers with rank: Police Chief Curry, Captain Lawrence, and Inspector Putnam. There is something profoundly humiliating to see a President of the United States emerge from a building in an American city running in fear. Some people, lounging at the bottom of the huge hospital building, became alert and shouted: “Tell us something!” “What the hell is going on?” “What happened?”
The party kept walking at top speed, the Secret Service agents fanning out ahead and some walking backward. The President jumped into the back seat of Chief Curry’s lead car and slouched as low as a big man can. Youngblood was beside him. Malcolm Kilduff hurried back to the emergency entrance to make arrangements for the death announcement. Congressman Thornberry jumped into the front seat beside Curry. Mrs. Johnson was shoved into the second car. Another group was in the third.
Lem Johns had not told the motorcycle cops whom they were going to escort or where. The cars started out, spinning stones behind them, and a male v
oice said: “Stop!” Youngblood ordered Curry not to stop. The President asked who it was. Someone said: “Congressman Albert Thomas.” “Then stop,” Johnson said, and the Congressman was literally hauled into the front seat, and Congressman Thornberry was dragged over the back of the first seat to a spot outboard of the President.
The ride amounted to flight. No one dared to trust anyone. Single-mount motorcycle policemen pulled ahead of the little caravan and asked, on Channel One, where they were going. Youngblood told the chief to tell them Love Field. The cars of the curious were parked askew all over the hospital grounds, and the three automobiles followed each other over curbstones, sidewalks, across open fields, to Harry Hines Boulevard. There the police escort started the sirens, and the President, with his face squeezed in the back seat between the arms of Thornberry and Youngblood, said: “Tell them to shut those sirens off.”
Curry did it. Still the wailing shrieks could be heard for a mile. It required two or three requests before they shut down. Then the motorcade began to run a series of “pink lights.” As they approached red ones, the phalanx of cycles had to ease out onto the intersection and wave motorists to a stop. Then the three cars, slowed for the moment, hit speed until the next “pink light.” The last part of the run was made at dangerous speed. At the airport the cars skidded through a hole in the fence and ground to a halt.
The Boeing 707 never looked so big, so friendly and so impregnable. It sat on the apron, a proud blue and white bird whose home was not Dallas, but rather the blue vault beyond the runway. There was no time for a farewell to Dallas nor a wave of gratitude for the hospitality. People behind the fence saw some dignitaries get out of three cars and they cheered. The officials hurried to the ramps and ran up into the plane without looking back.
