Officer Marrion Baker's mad dash for the.... Dal-Tex building?

[Paul Brancato]

Am I understanding correctly that officer Baker was interviewed on the 22nd but did not mention,the lunch room encounter until his interview on the 23rd?

[Sandy Larsen]

Seriously? You are calling Mr. Larsen's lines silly, and referencing Dale Myers, the king of silly line drawers?

The difference being, of course, that if Mr. Myers has drawn a line onto a photo or diagram, he has already done the photogrammetry work to verify that the angles are accurate. Do you think Sandy did that kind of work prior to drawing in all his lines?

Let's ask ---

Did you, Sandy?

There are no such angles involved in the path lines that I drew, David. I merely connected points at which Baker's toes can be seen to touch the ground. What I did is not affected by perspective or focal length.

[Paul Brancato]

Sandy - I posted something on an alternate thread that belongs on this one, a link to an older post - Oswald leaving the TSBD.

[Michael Walton]

DL - In other words, it cannot possibly be viewed as coincidence that a returned defector--one of a half doze such persons in a nation of almost 200 million--ended up being employed on the President's parade route.

David Lifton, sorry I didn't reply to you on your previous reply to me as I actually overlooked it. But thanks for your reply and yes, I agree with you 100%. The murder was well-planned and everything was just too neat and too pat. They got Oswald working there and the TSBD was the "throw-down" building or "patsy headquarters" if you will for the planners with the shells, the hidden gun, and so forth.

Oswald had three wallets (three!), one thrown down at Tippit's murder scene, they broadcast him within 15 minutes of Kennedy's shooting...I mean, I can go on and on. The midnight press conference...I know you can't go by gut instinct but just watching it convinces me this guy *knew* he was getting screwed over. I like to compare him with the very arrogant Tim McVeigh with his scowl on his face and chin jutting out. I know this may sound like a crazy comparison but believe me cops do the same thing - they study people and then go by gut instinct. He just does not look like a person who killed Kennedy and a police officer and during one of his calls that weekend he was talking about one of his babies needing new shoes.

I'll always believe, too, that Oswald was supposed to have been murdered at the theater to shut him up when he was arrested but something went wrong so Ruby was brought in to finish him off on live TV no less.

I know I'm all over the place here now but thanks for replying to my post.

[David Von Pein]

To re-emphasize:

It couldn't be more obvious (based on Officer Baker's shadow) that he is running TOWARD the curb, and hence, TOWARD THE DEPOSITORY.

Allow me to repeat my earlier post from Page 5 (which Sandy has not responded to as yet)....

"But, Sandy, how can Baker's shadow "[hit] the face of the curb and quickly [rise] to the top of the curb" if he's not running TOWARD that curb?

If he's running parallel to the curb, then why do we see his shadow hitting the curb and rising, as if he's running right toward the curb/sidewalk?

Please explain further. Thank you." -- DVP

Edited April 20, 2016 by David Von Pein

[Chris Davidson]

The re-directed angle caused by Truly's impingement upon Baker's path, equals Baker's angle to the curb.

It's neither parallel or directly forward, it's an angled approach after Truly.

If this is not understood by viewing this next Baker stabilized gif, it's time to move on.

chris

[Sandy Larsen]

But, Sandy, how can Baker's shadow "[hit] the face of the curb and quickly [rise] to the top of the curb" if he's not running TOWARD that curb?

If he's running parallel to the curb, then why do we see his shadow hitting the curb and rising, as if he's running right toward the curb/sidewalk?

Please explain further. Thank you.

David,

I'm glad you ask about Baker's shadow hitting the face of the curb and rising to the top. The reason I'm glad is because I have now put more thought into it and realize I had made an erroneous conclusion earlier. My line of thought before was as follows:

You're walking toward a vertical curb. The tip of your shadow precisely follows that movement. The tip of your shadow touches the base of the curb. You move just a tiny faction of an inch closer and the tip of your shadow is then on the top of the the curb.

You see, I was thinking that if you had a birds-eye view of your shadow, you would see it move seamlessly and continuously from street level to sidewalk level as you walked toward the sidewalk.

Having studied it carefully, I now realize that what I said would be true only if the face of the curb had the same angle as the angle of the sun. The shadow will "gap up" quickly only if the sun is high.

Here is the formula indicating how far up a shadow will move on a vertical surface as an object moves horizontally toward it:

y = x tan(Θ)

where:

x is the horizontal distance the person moves toward the curb.

y is how far up the curb the shadow will move as a result.

Θ is the angle of the sun, with zero degrees being horizon level and 90 degrees being straight overhead.

(I derived this formula using simple geometry and trigonometry. You can easily double-check my work if you want.)

On the video we can see Bakers shadow rise to the top of the curb. Let's assume the curb is 7 inches in height. Let's further assume that the angle of the sun is 45 degrees. (At 45 degrees, the length of the shadow is equal to the height of the object.) Plugging these into the formula, we have

7 = x tan(45)

The tangent of 45 degrees is one, so solving for x we get 7 inches.

So we know that Baker moved (roughly) 7 inches closer to the curb. But when did this occur?

I just looked at the animated GIF with a single-step viewer and found that Baker moved this 7 inches within two frames right after his right foot hit the pavement. (This is where we see his toe poking out from behind the very tall man.)

None of this 7 inch travel occurs during Baker's final step. So this shadow issue has no effect on my analysis. It just means that Baker was still rounding the corner as per my blue line in the animated GIF. It's actually a pretty good confirmation of my blue line, because if you look at it carefully you will see that it continues to curve right up to Baker's final step.

Having said all that...

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that Baker's shadow stopped right where we last see it... barely at the top of the curb. It's possible that it went a little higher up onto the sidewalk after the end of the video clip. It's also possible that it dropped a little. But what we do know is that the shadow position didn't change much during Baker's final step.. We know this because:

1. We can pretty closely approximate where Baker's left foot is about to land in the end, and doing so indicates that he is at that point running close to parallel with the curb.
2. We can compare the direction Baker is running with the direction the two nearby ladies are running. The two ladies are running toward the sidewalk, and we see their behinds. We don't see Baker's behind at all... we see a side view of him. His path is perpendicular to the paths of the ladies running to the sidewalk. And therefore his path is close to parallel with the curb.
3. And if that were enough, we can observe the Very Tall Man as Baker races past him. Very Tall Man is clearly maintaining his position such that he continues to face Baker as he passes by. Maybe because he's curious as to where Baker is going. Or maybe because he's making sure Baker doesn't run into him. Regardless, we see him looking in the direction of the sidewalk as Baker takes that last step. We know that because -- just as with the ladies -- we see his behind at that very moment. We see everybody's butt with the exception of Baker's... because Baker is the only one not facing the direction of the sidewalk. He is facing the Houston/Elm intersection.

[Sandy Larsen]

Am I understanding correctly that officer Baker was interviewed on the 22nd but did not mention,the lunch room encounter until his interview on the 23rd?

That's right, Paul.

I was just looking for Baker's 11/22 affidavit, and came across a Jim DiEugenio post that presents it perfectly IMO. Here it is:

Jim DiEugenio said the following here in Post 13:

As I wrote in Reclaiming Parkland:

​"...the final Commission version does not even resemble the incident that Baker described on the day of the assassination. On that day Baker executed an affidavit in which he described this encounter himself. He described going up the stairs with Truly. Then this startling passage follows:

​As we reached the third or fourth floor, I saw a man walking away from the stairway. I called to the man and he turned around and came back towards me. The manager said I know that man he works here. I then turned the man loose and went on up to the top floor. The man I saw was a white man approximately thirty years old, 5' 9', 165 pounds, dark hair and wearing a light thrown jacket. (p. 193)

(p. 194)

"In the affidavit, there is nothing about seeing Oswald through a window in the door. Nothing about the lunchroom. Nothing about a Coke. They weren't even in any room, but near a stairway. And the guy he saw does not appear to be Oswald. He was older, heavier and he was wearing a brown jacket."

And let us not leave out that Baker signed this affidavit not once but twice. And further he made out the handwritten version in the witness room--with Oswald sitting about five feet away from him. He almost had to fall over him to walk out.

And you are going to say that he never once asked this guy, "Didn't I stick a gun in your stomach in the lunchroom of the TSBD earlier today?"

Can you imagine at that phony baloney trial in London if that ingenue Spence had waited for Bugliosi to go ahead and take Baker through his paces. He then stood up and looked at Bugliosi, and said something, like "Vince, you are about to be taken to school." Walked over to the witness, put this affidavit in front of Baker, asked him if he recognized it, waited until he said yes, and then turned, walked over to the prosecutor and started reading it right in front of Bugliosi.

I would have paid a lot of money to have been there for that. When Lee Oswald really would have had a defense.

Edited April 20, 2016 by Sandy Larsen

[Sandy Larsen]

Sandy - I posted something on an alternate thread that belongs on this one, a link to an older post - Oswald leaving the TSBD.

Why don't you post a link to it here, Paul?

[Ray Mitcham]

[Sandy Larsen]

The re-directed angle caused by Truly's impingement upon Baker's path, equals Baker's angle to the curb.

It's neither parallel or directly forward, it's an angled approach after Truly.

If this is not understood by viewing this next Baker stabilized gif, it's time to move on.

chris

Chris,

I don't think anybody can draw any further conclusions from this GIF because it runs too fast. Plus it could be bigger, though that isn't a problem for me because I can increase the size with my browser.

Also, why not do what I did and draw a lines attaching each footstep that can be made out? I think you will see that Baker isn't as close to Truly as you believe him to be. But if you're right, I'd like to see it.

I want to look at the file carefully with my GIF single-step player. Unfortunately I can't figure out how to save the file to my PC. I just keep being taken to PhotoBucket.

[Ray Mitcham]

http://s46.photobucket.com/user/Fourbrick/media/Baker_zpsq9duo9vg.mp4.html

Edited April 20, 2016 by Ray Mitcham

[Sandy Larsen]

I don't know what you're trying to post here, Ray, but it's not working for me. Not well, anyway.

[Ian Lloyd]

Baker Playing Footsies.

The very last step you see Baker taking appears to be showing his leg rising as if he's stepping up onto the sidewalk?

[Ray Mitcham]

Hi Sandy. should be a link to Photobucket to a more stabilised gif. Can't post the normal address.