This man heard 8 shots

[Wim Dankbaar]

http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/...Vol19_0252b.htm

No wonder he was not called to testify.

Wim

Edited December 14, 2004 by Wim Dankbaar

[Ron Ecker]

He also received a terrifying phone threat, and was never called to testify by the Warren Commission or the HSCA.

Ron

[Shanet Clark]

That's a beauty. It allows for the full triangulation, if you read the third volley "farther back" on the grassy knoll as echoing from original shots from the south. This is a wonderfully unprompted, unscripted eye and ear witness with no particular agenda......

[Tom Kutzer]

Wallace Plumbing.

Didn't Julie Ann Mercer have remarks about a Wallace plumbing truck near the knoll?

[Nic Martin]

Wallace Plumbing.

Didn't Julie Ann Mercer have remarks about a Wallace plumbing truck near the knoll?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Nothing in Mercer's statement mentions a plumbing truck.

Mr. Sorrels' statement:

"There was another witness there that I started talking to, I don't recall the name now, because I told him to go in.. somebody that saw a truck down there, this is before the parade ever got there, that apparently had stalled down there on Elm Street. And I later checked on that, and found out that the car had gone dead, apparently belonged to some construction company, and that a police officer had come down there, and they had gone to the construction company and gotten somebody to come down and get the car out of the way. Apparently it was just a car stalled down there. But this lady said she thought she saw somebody that looked like they had a guncase. But then I didn't pursue that any further--because then I had gotten the information that the rifle had been found in the building and shells and so forth... "

Ms. Mercer's statement:

"On November 22, 1963, I was driving a rented White Valient automobile west on Elm Street and was proceeding to the overpass in a westerly direction and at a point about 45 or 50 feet east of the overhead signs of the right entrance road to the overpass, there was a truck parked on the right hand side of the road. The truck ;ooked like it had 1 or 2 wheels up on the curb. The hood of the truck was open. On the driver's side of the truck, there were printed letters in black, oval shaped, which said "Air Conditioning". This was a pickup truck and along the back side of the truck were what appeared to be tool boxes. The truck was a green Ford with a Texas license. I remember seeing the word "Ford" at the back of the truck."

Edited December 14, 2004 by Nic Martin

[Shanet Clark]

Millican worked for the plumbing company, but saw a Honest Joe Pawn Shop truck near the TBSD before the shooting. The truck stalled on the south side is suspicious, as well. Millican was very well placed to identify the directions of the shots, in the general vicinity of the parade witness participants like Umbrella Man.

He specifies the sound of a .45 or automatic rifle fire. Millican was familiar with the area as a pipelayer and walked into the middle of the parade route detour zone, the death zone he so articulately describes as the "Arcade."

Please read the PDF file on Millican's statement, I would paste it if I could...

[Tom Kutzer]

thanks, Nic.....maybe it was in one of the "mighta been movies", lol...

[Steve Thomas]

Shanet,

Please read the PDF file on Millican's statement, I would paste it if I could...

The newer versions of Adobe Reader allow you to copy and paste text from a pdf file.

Steve Thomas

[Wim Dankbaar]

http://jfkassassination.net/russ/testimony/millican.htm

BILL DECKER

SHERIFF

CRIMINAL COURTS BUILDING

DALLAS, TEXAS

A.J. Millican

2650 Valley View Lane

Dallas 34, Texas

Chapel 7-4953

Works for Sam P. Wallace and Claude Beard Plumbing Company

Fabricating pipe for the Republic Bank Building at the end of the Katy Railroad yards and the west end of Pacific Street I was standing on the North side of Elm Street, about half way between Houston and the Underpass. About five or ten minutes before the President came by I observed a truck from Honest Joe's Pawn Shop, and parked by the Book Depository Store. Then drove off about five or ten minutes before the Presiden't car came by. Just after the President's car passed, I heard three shots come from up toward Houston and Elm right by the Book Depository Building, and then immediately I heard two more shots from the Arcade between the Book Store and the Underpass, and then three more shots came from the same direction only sounded further back. It sounded approximately like a 45 automatic, or a high powered rifle. Then everybody started running up the hill. A man standing on the South side of Elm Street, was either hit in the foot, or the ankle and fell down. And then I went back to work.

/s/ A.J. Millican

[Wim Dankbaar]

Millican worked for the plumbing company, but saw a Honest Joe Pawn Shop truck near the TBSD before the shooting. The truck stalled on the south side is suspicious, as well.

------------------------------

It looks like Honest Joe and son, liked guns:

http://jfkmurdersolved.com/images/honestjoe.jpg

http://jfkmurdersolved.com/images/honestjoe1.jpg

Jack Ruby knew Honest Joe and also Patrick T. Dean of the DPD. There is a witness who saw Partrick Dean on the knoll in the parking lot right after the shots.

Wim

Mr. Griffin.

Are you acquainted with the name of a guy named Honest Joe?

Mr. Dean.

Right. Yes, sir.

Mr. Griffin.

Tell us what you remember about that.

Mr. Dean.

Well, he said, "Well, I know Honest Joe or"----In other words, the only thing that I got out of that was that he knew Honest Joe. This wasn't relative to what I wanted to find out from Ruby, and I just disregarded this from my mind.

Edited December 17, 2004 by Wim Dankbaar

[Ron Ecker]

Here's a link to a Lancer thread on Honest Joe. Apparently the crux of the matter is touched upon in Sorrels' testimony: Honest Joe took advantage of any opportunity to advertise.

Driving his lettered truck around while people were waiting for a presidential motorcade was certainly a good way to get attention.

http://www.jfklancerforum.com/dc/dcboard.p...ing_type=search

[Wim Dankbaar]

The handgun used by John Hinckley in the Reagan assassination attempt was bought from Honest Joe (Rocky)

Wim

http://www.logicsouth.com/~lcoble/dir4/excg223.txt

On March 31, 1981, President Ronald Reagan was shot while

leaving a Washington, DC hotel. Secret Service agents immediately

arrested the assailant and recovered the handgun used in the

shooting. Within minutes, the National Firearms Tracing Center of

the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) was contacted

to run a trace of a Rhoem, Model RG14, serial number L731332.

From a telephone call to the manufacturer in Miami, FL, it was

learned that the handgun was made in 1980 and shipped to a North

Carolina wholesaler. The wholesaler's records showed the handgun

had been sold to Rocky's Pawn Shop in Dallas. A subsequent check

of the pawn shop's records revealed the gun had been sold on

October 13, 1980, to a 25 year old who identified himself as John

Hinckley, Jr. It took 14 minutes for ATF to trace the handgun

from the manufacturer to the suspect arrested. Not all traces are

so spectacular as this one, but many traces do assist in solving

crimes.

[Ron Ecker]

Wim,

How do you know that Rocky's Pawn Shop and Honest Joe's are the same?

Ron

[Wim Dankbaar]

Wim,

How do you know that Rocky's Pawn Shop and Honest Joe's are the same?

------------------------------

His son is called Eddie Goldstein (see picture I posted)

http://www.dallashistory.org/cgi-bin/webbb...g.pl?read=15185

Roy, Honest Joe's Pawn Shop was a large overgrown junk yard that called itself a pawn shop located not far from the old Central Fire Station. My dad spent the last 20 year of his life as a dispatcher at that fire station. He died in 1966. I visited the fire station and Honest Joe's many times in my youth.

While I don't have incontrovertible citations at my fingertips, my recollection is that a proper investigation of the facts will show that you have the wrong pawn shop for the Hinkley gun source. As I recall the Hinkley gun and the Ruby gun were both purchased from the same shop a few blocks from Honest Joes. The original name of the shop was Ruby's Pawn Shop when Jack bought his gun there. The owner was so irate with Jack Ruby that he changed the name of his shop at the same location to Rocky's Pawn Shop where Hinkley made his purchase.

In Response To: Re: Honest Joe's Pawn Shop (Gerald Harris)

Now it comes to me. The name of the pawn shop operator was Ruby Goldstein who changed his name to Rocky Goldstein.

http://www.clal.org/e70.html

Should a Jew Sell Guns?

By J. David Bleich (Sh'ma 11/214, May 15, 1981)

Mr. Isaac Goldstein,

Proprietor, Rocky's Pawn Shop

Elm Street

Dallas, Texas

Dear Mr. Goldstein,

Time Magazine reports that you are giving serious consideration to discontinuing the sale of handguns in your establishment. No doubt, the recent attempt upon the life of President Reagan is prompting such soul searching not only on your part, as proprietor of the store which sold that particular gun, but on the part of countless other gun dealers as well. Permit me to draw your attention to one aspect of Jewish teaching which should figure prominently in such deliberations.

Maimonidies (Hilkhot Rotzeah 12:12, paraphrasing Avodah Zarah 15b) declares: "It is forbidden to sell heathens weapons of war. Nor is it permitted to sharpen their spears, or to sell them knives, manacles, iron chains, bears, lions or any object which can endanger the public; but it is permitted to sell them shields which are only for defense."

Mr. Goldstein, a sticker on the door of your shop reads "Guns Don't Cause Crime Any More Than Flies Cause Garbage. " Maimonides disagrees emphatically. In explaining the premise upon which the provision of Jewish law is based, Maimonides tells us that in selling arms to a heathen "one strengthens the hands of an evil-doer and causes him to transgress" and "anyone who causes one who is blind with regard to a matter to stumble -- or one who strengthens the hand of a person who is blind and does not see the path of truth because of the desire of his heart violates a negative precept as it is stated, "You shall not put a stumbling block before the blind."

This precept was understood by the Sages as an admonition designed to protect not only the physically blind, but the intellectually and morally blind as well. A Jew is forbidden to take advantage of another person's lack of awareness in a way which causes harm to that person or to others. The Torah forbids us to mislead the blind and thereby cause them to stumble. We are forbidden to give the uninformed misinformation or poor advice; we are forbidden to prey upon, or pander to, the predilections of the morally blind.

These restrictions are part of Torah and accepted by Jews because such is the divine command, but they also happen to make good sense. Let me tell you a story.

Everyone remembers the assassination of Martin Luther King. Some, but probably not many, will remember the shooting of Martin Luther King's mother some time afterward. It is an event I am not likely to forget not because of the event itself, but because of an incident which occurred subsequently.

A short time after the shooting, my wife and I were sitting in a cafe in Prague. A young, highly intelligent medical student struck up a conversation with us. As he began to feel comfortable in our company, he leaned across the table and, in a conspiratorial tone, asked why American intelligence had sought the death of Mrs. King. I hastened to assure him that Mrs. King was a very private person, not involved in political affairs, and that it was highly unlikely that anyone beyond her immediate circle of family and friends had been more than dimly aware of her existence. Moreover, there was cause to believe that the man responsible for her shooting was mentally incompetent.

Our young friend was incredulous. I assumed that he suspected a plot to be lurking behind every headline. No, he assured me, he understood well enough that in the West not everything is controlled by the government. But this incident must have been government-directed, came the clincher to the argument, because otherwise how could the assassin have come into possession of a gun!

We had come to Prague via Vienna. In Vienna, but several kilometers away, we stayed in a hotel off the Graben on Dorotheegasse. The street was rather narrow and easily overlooked. Returning from our outings, we recognized the turn by means of a large neon sign outside a store on a corner. The sign was emblazoned with but a single word " Waffe." The young man's reaction to my account of how handguns are freely available in many western nations was that I must be a weaver of fancy tales or else Western society is plumb crazy.

The ease which handguns can be acquired in some Western countries is simply incomprehensible to persons who live in a more circumscribed environment. To them this is not a sign of freedom of the West, of which they are jealous and which they could replicate if they but could, but of an irrationality of which they wish no part.

Jewish law recognizes that indiscriminate sale of weapons cannot fail to endanger the public. The daily newspaper confirms this deep seated distrust far more often than is necessary. As the bearers of an ageless moral code Jews ought to be in the vanguard of those seeking to impress upon our legislators that handguns are indeed "stumbling blocks" which must not fall into the hands of the "blind". Criminals do commit crimes and it is precisely because "morally blind" criminals are disposed to crime that Judaism teaches that it is forbidden to provide them with the tools of their trade.

Yes, Mr. Goldstein, flies do not cause garbage, but garbage does attract flies. Guns may or may not cause crime, but crimes of violence cannot be committed without tools of violence. Self-restraint in the sale of weapons is a small enough price to pay for even marginal enhancement of public safety.

Sincerely yours,

J. David Bleich

[Ron Ecker]

Wim,

Thanks for the links. As best I can determine from them, Honest Joe was Rubin Goldstein (known to Forrest Sorrels as Ruby Goldstein, according to Sorrels' testimony), who ran Honest Joe's Pawn Shop. His brother Isaac "Rocky" Goldstein ran Rocky's Pawn Shop, which sold the gun to Hinckley. Two different pawn shops among several in the area. (A third brother Dave Goldstein apparently had a pawn shop too, Dave's Pawn Shop.)

Ron