• Also at about 12:45, Tippit was asked by dispatch on his police radio to report his location. Tippit responded: “I’m about Keist and Bonnie View” which, if the multiple eyewitness testimony is accurate, could not have been true.4
• It was apparently shortly after 12:50 p.m. that witnesses saw Tippit take off rapidly in his car, heading south. That is further established by a radio call he placed at 12:54 p.m., telling police dispatch that he was at “Eighth and Lancaster,” which was several blocks south of the gas station.5
• Then, at around 1:00 p.m., Tippit parked his car, went into a record store, Top Ten Records, on Jefferson Street, and placed a phone call using the store’s phone. Witnesses reported that the call was apparently unanswered and that Tippit then left the store abruptly, appearing agitated.6
•
1 William M. Drenas, “Tippit Locations 11/22/63,” October 1998: http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/tippit1.gif and William M. Drenas, “Car #10 Where Are You?,” October 1998: http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/car10.htm
2 William M. Drenas, “Car #10 Where Are You?,” October 1998: http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/car10.htm
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
6 David Welsh, “In the Shadow of Dallas: The Legacy of Penn Jones, Jr.,” Ramparts Magazine, November 1966, pp 39-50: http://www.unz.org/Pub/Ramparts-1966nov-00039 and Livingstone, The Radical Right and the Murder of John F. Kennedy and Dixie Dea, “J. D. Tippit: Was he part of the conspiracy?,” 11 Jan 2005: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=2862
• At 1:03 p.m., Officer Tippit received a call from dispatch over his police radio, to which he did not respond.1
• Rather than reporting to the Triple Underpass in downtown Dallas as most Dallas police units did (even, in some cases, in direct violation of their orders), Officer Tippit was quite apparently looking for someone or something. As Professor William Pulte summarized the evidence regarding Tippit’s actions at this point:
. . . Tippit’s movements are consistent with the actions of a man frantically looking for someone.2
• He got back in his police car and, traveling west on Tenth Street, passed a car being driven by an insurance salesman, James Andrews. Contrary to police procedure, Tippit did not put on his siren and pull the car over from behind. He passed Andrews’ car, cut in front of him, and stopped on an angle, blocking the car. He got out of his police car and rushed to the driver’s side of Andrews’ car, reportedly directing his attention to the floor area between the seats. Not seeing whatever it was that he was apparently looking for, he then rushed back into his car, reversed directions, and sped away quickly to the east.3
• According to a witness who was driving behind Tippit’s police car at that point, Tippit slammed on the brakes of his car, stopping so rapidly that the driver behind him was unable to stop in time and hit the rear bumper of Tippit’s police unit. Tippit was completely unconcerned with the matter and, rather than attending to the collision, instead backed up rapidly toward the curb near Tenth and Patton Streets.4
• Officer Tippit was then observed by several witnesses—in his car at the curb near Tenth and Patton Streets—talking to a pedestrian through the passenger side of the police car. According to witnesses, the two conversed amiably and casually, for about a minute. According to the Warren Commission, that pedestrian was Lee Harvey Oswald. According to many eyewitnesses to the incident, however, that man did not fit Oswald’s description.5
• Also, after the shooting of President Kennedy, the landlady at Oswald’s rooming house, Earlene Roberts, observed Oswald
1 William M. Drenas, “Car #10 Where Are You?,” October 1998: http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/car10.htm
2 Ibid.
3 Livingstone, The Radical Right and the Murder of John F. Kennedy and Dixie Dea, “J. D. Tippit: Was he part of the conspiracy?,” 11 Jan 2005: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index
.php?showtopic=2862
4 William M. Drenas, “Car #10 Where Are You?,” October 1998: http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/car10
.htm
5 John Armstrong, Harvey and Lee: Just the Facts, Please, 1998 (accessed 21 Sept 2012): http://www
.acorn.net/jfkplace/09/fp.back_issues/25th_issue/facts.html
• going into his room. Shortly afterwards, she saw a Dallas police car stop in front of the rooming house. Two honks came from the driver of the police car, who then drove away, and Oswald soon left the rooming house.1 If the car was actually a unit from the Dallas police, it had to be Tippit’s, because he was the only unit assigned to the Oak Cliff area of Dallas that day.2
It is intriguing, to say the least, that Oswald’s departure from the rooming house occurred only moments after the strange appearance and horn-blowing of the patrol car from the Dallas Police Department. Exhaustive investigations have virtually established that the only police car officially in the vicinity was that of Officer J. D. Tippit. Less than fifteen minutes after this incident, Officer Tippit was savagely murdered and left dead in the street, about a mile from Oswald’s rooming house.3
• Oswald’s whereabouts at 1:04 p.m. were pinpointed by his landlady, who looked out of the window and saw Oswald standing at the bus stop at that time.4 At 1:06 p.m., only two minutes later, Officer Tippit, by some reports, had already been shot and lay dead on the ground. Witness Domingo Benavides, spoke the following into the police radio of Tippit’s unit: “Hello police operator—we’ve had a shooting here, it’s a police officer. Somebody shot him.” The police report stated that the call came from witness Benavides over the police radio at 1:16 p.m. But that was quite some time after the shooting. Benavides made that call after he waited a while to ensure that the killer was gone from the scene and he would not be attacked by him. Benavides’ exact words were:
. . . I sat there for just a few minutes. . . I thought maybe he [the killer] had lived in there (the house where he last saw the gunman) and I didn’t want to get out and rush right up. He might start shooting again. . . .That is when I got out of the truck and walked over to the policeman. . . The policeman, I believe, was dead when he hit the ground. . .5
Another eyewitness, T. F. Bowley, certified in his legal Affidavit that he arrived at the Tippit crime scene and saw Officer Tippit lying dead on the ground. He looked at his watch and it was 1:10 p.m. The assailants were long gone and there were already several bystanders looking
1 John Simkin, “Earlene Roberts: Biography,” Spartacus Educational, accessed 17 Sept 2012: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKrobertsE2.htm
2 Henry Hurt, Reasonable Doubt: An Investigation into the Assassination of John F. Kennedy (Holt, Rinehart & Winston: 1986).
3 Ibid.
4 Jim Garrison, On the Trail of the Assassins: My Investigation and Prosecution of the Murder of President Kennedy (Sheridan Square: 1988), cited at Lee Harvey Oswald’s “Murder” of Policeman JD Tippit: http://scribblguy.50megs.com/tippit.htm
5 Jim Marrs, Crossfire: http://spot.acorn.net/jfkplace/03/JDT/brundage.tippit
at the crime scene, so the shooting had to have happened at least a couple minutes before that.1
Therefore, when the facts are examined closely, 1:08 p.m. appears to be the accurate approximation of the latest possible time of the shooting.
• That crime scene was at Tenth and Patton streets, over a mile away from the bus stop where Oswald was placed at 1:04, and the bus that came by during that time span was traveling in the opposite direction of Tenth and Patton. There would not have been time for Oswald to walk one mile and then converse with Officer Tippit for about a minute, prior to his murder at 1:08 p.m.2 That point was hammered home by Jim Garrison, the only man to officially pursue and prosecute the assassination of President Kennedy; District Attorney Garrison put the time of the shooting at 1:06 p.m.:
First of all, given what was known about Oswald’s movements, it was highly improbable that he could have been physically present at the time of Tippit’s murder. According to several eyewitnesses a
t the scene, Tippit was shot anywhere from 1:06 p.m. to 1:10 p.m. Deputy Sheriff Roger Craig, who was at the Book Depository at the time, confirmed this. When he heard the report of Tippit’s death on the radio, he looked at his watch; it was 1:06 p.m.
And yet Oswald, it was generally acknowledged, had returned to his rooming house at around 1:00 p.m. He left quickly and Earlene Roberts, the housekeeper, observed him standing by the northbound Beckley Avenue bus stop at 1:04. The area where Tippit was killed was in the opposite direction, a mile to the south. Using the broadest interpretation of the time element, even if Oswald had changed his mind about the bus and run southward, it was virtually impossible for him to have arrived at the scene before the shooting of the police officer.3
• The Warren Commission officially placed the time of Tippit’s death at 1:16 p.m., solving the aforementioned timing problem that was apparent after it became known that Oswald was waiting at the bus stop at 1:04 p.m.4
• The Warren Commission also concluded that Tippit stopped Oswald because he fit the description of the President’s assassin which had been broadcast over the police radio. That was an extremely irrational conclusion. The official version, that
1 “Affidávit of T.F. Bowley,” 2 Dec 1963, JFK Assassination Forum: http://www.jfkassassinationforum
.com/index.php?topic=4004.45;wap2
2 Roberts & Armstrong, The Dead Witnesses, 30-31.
3 Jim Garrison, On the Trail of the Assassins: My Investigation and Prosecution of the Murder of President Kennedy (Sheridan Square: 1988), cited at Lee Harvey Oswald’s “Murder” of Policeman JD Tippit: http://scribblguy.50megs.com/tippit.htm
4 Jim Marrs, Crossfire: http://spot.acorn.net/jfkplace/03/JDT/brundage.tippit
• Officer Tippit stopped a man who fit the description of President Kennedy’s assassin, simply makes no sense. The description over the police radio was so general that it could have fit half the male population and it also described the subject as carrying a rifle, which Oswald was not. Tippit did not approach the individual as if he were a suspect.
The verbatim broadcast was:
‘Attention, all squads, the suspect is believed to be a white male, age 30, 5 feet 10 inches, slender build, 165 pounds, armed with what is thought to be a 30-30 rifle. No further description or information at this time.’
Thus the broadcast description was for a suspect that was neither short nor tall, a man that was neither large nor small, and neither young nor old. It was a description for the average white guy, while Oswald, a slight young man at 24 years of age and only 131 pounds, was not a good fit for the description. And thus, while there was no known reason in his appearance or behavior to arouse suspicions, the same cannot be said of Tippit. Aside from there being no adequate explanation why Tippit stopped Oswald, the fact is that Tippit was not on his routine patrol as the Warren Commission claimed. For reasons that remain suspicious Tippit had left his assigned patrol area in District 78 in south Dallas and had driven to Oswald’s neighborhood.1
• The eyewitness testimony regarding the man who shot Officer Tippit also did not match the description of Lee Harvey Oswald.2 In fact, numerous eyewitness accounts described an assailant quite unlike Oswald. As was a constant and disturbing pattern in the aftermath of the JFK assassination, witness testimony which did not align with the official version of events was systematically ignored or marginalized. In fact, at least six eyewitnesses—all ignored by the Warren Commission—saw not one, but two men involved in the shooting of Officer Tippit.3
Put plainly:
The descriptions of Tippit’s killer by several witnesses and police broadcasts are reasonably consistent with each other, but not with the Oswald arrested minutes later at the Texas Theater.4
1 Donald Byron Thomas, Hear No Evil: Social Constructivism and the Forensic Evidence in the Kennedy Assassination (Mary Ferrell Foundation Press: 2010) 493. http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=145592&relPageId=519
2 Armstrong, Harvey and Lee: Just the Facts, Please
3 Richard E. Sprague, The Taking of America, 1-2-3 (Richard Sprague: 1976): http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/ToA/
4 John Armstrong, “Harvey, Lee and Tippit: A New Look at the Tippit Shooting,” Probe Magazine, January-February 1998 (Vol. 5 No. 2): http://www.ctka.net/pr198-jfk.html
Federal investigators summarily rejected the testimony of Acquilla Clemons and stated the reason was “because of her poor health.”1 Although Ms. Clemons suffered from diabetes, it was obviously insufficient cause to reject her very valid testimony. Witness intimidation was obvious and, in several cases, after a stubborn witness was shot at or otherwise intimidated, they changed their story to conform to the official version.2
• Officer Tippit was reportedly shot with an automatic and Oswald was carrying a revolver. Two very experienced witnesses (a police Sergeant and a combat-experienced former Marine) testified they were certain that the crime scene gun was an automatic.3
Mr. Myers: After the shooting, police found shells at the scene. They went on the radio and said they were .38 automatics. Later Oswald’s arrested with a revolver that fires .38 specials, a shell that’s clearly about a quarter inch longer. Besides, they’re clearly stamped on the bottom. One says, “.38 special,” one says, “.38 automatic.”
Narrator: Automatic shells would mean Oswald was not there and that the evidence could have been planted.4
District Attorney Jim Garrison saw that matter as a huge red flag:
As I continued my research, I discovered that beyond the eyewitnesses there was other evidence gathered and altered by the Dallas homicide unit showing that Lee Oswald had been framed in the Tippit murder. For instance, I read transcripts of the messages sent over the Dallas police radio shortly after the murder. These were recorded automatically on a log. Just minutes after a citizen first reported the murder on Tippit’s radio, Patrolman H.W. Summers in Dallas police unit number 221 (the designation for the squad car) reported that an “eyeball witness to the getaway man” had been located. The suspect was described as having black wavy hair, wearing an Eisenhower jacket of light color, with dark trousers and a white shirt. He was “apparently armed with a .32, dark finish, automatic pistol,” which he had in his right hand. Moments later, Sergeant G. Hill reported that “the shell at the scene indicates that the suspect is armed with an automatic .38 rather than a pistol.”
1 Ibid.
2 John Simkin, “Biography: Warren Reynolds,” accessed 20 Sept 2012: http://www.spartacus
.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKreynolds.htm and David Welsh, “In the Shadow of Dallas: The Legacy of Penn Jones, Jr.,” Ramparts Magazine, November 1966, pp 39-50: http://www.unz.org/Pub/Ramparts-1966nov-00039 and Gil Jesus, “Re; Oswald’s Sole Guilt – Point By Point,” JFK Lancer Forums, 31 Dec 1969: http://www.jfklancerforum.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=printer_friendly&forum=3&topic_id=17758&mesg_id=17855
3 Michael T. Griffith, “Did Oswald Shoot Tippit?: A Review of Dale Myers’ Book With Malice: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Murder of Officer J. D. Tippit,” 2002: http://www.kenrahn.com/jfk/the_critics/griffith/With_Malice.html
4 PBS FRONTLINE: Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald? 20 November 2003: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/oswald/etc/script.html
It seemed clear to me from this that the hand gun used to shoot Tippit was an automatic. But the gun allegedly taken from Lee Oswald when Dallas police later arrested him at the Texas Theatre was a revolver. Unless Oswald had stopped and changed guns, which no one had ever suggested, this fact alone put a severe hole in the government’s case.1
There is no more serious matter on this planet to a police officer than a radio call of “Officer down”— if there is ever a time that another officer will make sure to “get it right,” it is when one of their own has been mortally wounded. So if the officer on the scene made the point of saying over the radio that the assailant was armed with an automatic, then you can pretty much bet the ranch that he was sure on that specific point.
&nb
sp; • “In a 1986 interview, Hill said he knew the shells were .38-caliber shells because he picked one up and examined it. This is significant because .38 automatic shells are marked ‘.38 AUTO’ on the bottom. Hill specifically said he looked at the bottom of the shell that he examined. It is no wonder, then, that Hill got on the radio and said:
‘The shells at the scene indicate that the suspect is armed with an automatic .38.’”2
• The bullets in Oswald’s revolver were never conclusively linked to the four bullets in Officer Tippit. District Attorney Garrison:
Hit List: An In-Depth Investigation Into the Mysterious Deaths of Witnesses to the JFK Assassination Page 4
