Chris Bristow

I'm not ignoring those other Witnesses I'm just specifically talking about the four bike cops testimony. I understand Witnesses behind or directly in front can't perceive motion as well as those on the side. The Z film shows the limo moving at just under 9 mph at frame 314. If it is correct then the Limo slowed by less than 1 mph to reach it's slowest speed at 8.3 mph by frame 320. The deceleration starting in the mid 200s and increasing just after frame 313 is a mostly gradual deceleration. That's what the Z film documents. I don't know how the less than abrupt deceleration we see in the Z film could be mistaken for a stop or extreme slowing by the four bike cops right next to the limo.

By frame 270 the limo was down to just under 12mph. If it had suddenly slowed from 20 to 8mph I could see some folks being confused by that. But the slowing was gradual.

There are valid reasons the limo needed to slow down. But the speed of the limo can be accurately measured and I can't wrap my head around the cops maybe 3 ft away calling 8mph a stop or almost a stop.

In the Z film the limo never slows below 8 miles per hour. We can measure that accurately because we know it's filming at 18.6 frames per second and all of the Zapruderr frames are available for free download. Slowing from 13 to 8 mph doesn't match up with people saying it almost stopped., imo.

I think so many witnesses using the phrase slowed or stopped is compelling. For people to be unsure as to whether it just slowed or actually stopped would mean it had to go very very slow.

When thinking about this I looked on YouTube and found a video of a guy shooting from bushes right after it rained and it did create Steam. But it could have been raining lightly and I just didn't see it, or maybe it was warm and humid. I also don't remember what kind of rifle it was. I've never fired a rifle under those circumstances but I wanted to offer up the possibility. Thanks for your input.

The testimony of Hargis, Chaney, Jackson, and Martin regarding the limo slowing/stopping is highly qualified. They were tasked with keeping Pace with the limo throughout the parade. They were expected to stay near the rear bumper and not pull up right alongside JFK and Jackie. That is a difference of about 10 ft before hargis' exhaust is pointing right at JFK and Jackie. To keep that tight window they had to monitor the speed of the limo very closely. If for instance, the limo suddenly slowed from 8 mph to 2 mph for just 3 seconds it would change the position of the limo on Elm by about 27 ft. That would mean Hargis and Chaney would pass right by JFK and Jackie and be out beyond the front hood of the limo if they didn't hit the brakes right away. All four cops testified to the limo either slowing to almost a stop or coming to a momentary complete stop. How could all four cops, who are closely watching their position relative to the limo, make such a huge error in their perception?

It had rained that morning and it was rather cold so I assume water that was hanging in the trees would still be there. If you fire a rifle about 6 in under the branches I would think a great deal of heat would go upward and outward. Is it possible that burst of Rising Heat could have caused some of the water on those leaves to turn to steam and be mixed with the Gunsmoke?

He gave us all a great deal, a very big footprint. He will be remembered.

haven't forgotten this I'll get back to you in a day or two.

Dr McClelland said it was "a wound of the left temple". That easily could be a simple mistake. But I wonder if a doctor is going to describe what killed a person would he talk about the entry wound or the exit wound? Seems when I hear about someone getting shot they describe where the entry wound was. But this issue of why he said "left temple" requires far too much speculation to be of any real value. I think most people understand that McClelland never agreed with the autopsy photos regarding the issue of that big hole in the back of his head. It has been misrepresented by deceptive sound bites from that Nova documentary and some people believe it. He didn't even agree that the back of the head photo wasn't a forgery, he simply theorized that they may have pulled the skin up over the wound. The most compelling argument from Parkland is obviously the sheer number of people who reported the wound in the rear. The second compelling Factor is that the skeptics have to Cobble together a dozen different reasons to explain the consistency of those testimonies. Add a lot of speculation about people's thoughts and motivations and some appeal to Authority and they still have a very flimsy case.

Your explanation was detailed and clear, but I'm not sure life experience tells us the rifle would not move. All things being equal I suppose it would just lay there but I still can't see the forces as equal. I would expect that if I put a firecracker in a closed can with a bottom of 6 in and the top only 3 in the bottom would absorb more energy and the can would jump in that direction. The lead plug would have a smaller diameter than the inside back surface of the shell. It seems to me it should receive more of the force. I think a master cylinder conveys the principal I'm thinking about. The initiating plunger is smaller than the secondary one. So the power transferred to the secondary plunger is greater than the force applied by the initiating plunger. In your explanation reaching fb-0 is based on the premise that the gun should not move if plugged. I'm not confident in the premise. Aside from small details I think your basic statement was correct and the kickback largely represents the energy going out the barrel.

The Hat seen through the bushes turns out to be Emmett Hudson's, the groundskeeper for the Plaza. He's one of the three guys standing on the steps. Zapruder's line of sight through the bushes to the point on Elm directly behind the Hat passes directly through Hudson's known position on the steps. You can estimate the height of the Hat using the slope angle of that line of sight and it comes out to between five and six feet off the ground. It is pretty much a perfect match and the only object in that line of sight that could account for that hat.

I don't want to make another long rant here but geez dude, if the witness is being intimidated the last thing they're going to say is that they're being intimidated. Cuz they're being intimidated!

Crenshaw's memory changed from day to day? Height of the head wound did vary when they demonstrated it behind their head and I addressed that. The videos of people reaching for the back of their head shows very clearly that they do vary. But saying he changed his opinions day today is just a very bias characterization. Considering the variation we see when Witnesses are reaching for the location I can't conclude that he was influenced by Dr mcclelland's drawing. But if he was it should be noted that he was not influenced by the official record. My point being that his wound location or locations and the official wound are miles apart. Who told the Boston Globe that the autopsy more closely represented what they saw than doctor mcclellands drawing? I could see Jenkins, Baxter, Gossman, or Carrico because they support the official story. Do you recall any of the names? I consider it when Witnesses differ on their own accounts of the wound location. I also have to consider that people make small mistakes over time. The accounts of the staff that day fall almost entirely into just two versions. Occipital parietal with a vertical and lateral variance of about 2 in, and then there's the official parietal wound. It's like night and day. Even when we account for changing memories or misplacing the hand a bit it is not even close. There's no way to explain the overwhelming consistency of these reports when you compare them to the official report. Crenshaw explained that he went back in after the resuscitation ended to look at the wound. He said this was partially driven by the helplessness he felt and wanted to know just what happened. That would support the idea that he didn't get much of a look during the resuscitation. But when he went back in the room was mostly cleared out so we can't speculate on how many seconds he looked at it.

a lot different. You can easily find x-rays showing bullets logged in the head which means all the bullets energy at impact was transferred to the head. I know that this is an extreme example but a 50. cal sniper rifle will definitely move the head, move it right off the body! I saw a clip once when the top half of the body went left and the bottom half went right.

There is a slightly longer clip of Crenshaw in which he drags his hand from the front top of the head to the low position behind his ear. He states that this was all gone. He does not say the bone was missing or damaged. But in another clip he explains that he looked inside the wound cavity and saw a trough of missing brain running from the supposed entry wound on the forehead to the rear exit. This is how he came to the opinion that there was a front entry wound, he did not see the entry wound. When asked how the wound would have looked if it was a rear entry he says it would have caused a big blowout as he pointed to the parietal area. If there is a place in this interview when he agrees with the official wound location I missed it. As far as his raising the location over the years I don't know if we can ascribe something nefarious. Looking at many of the other staff attempting to demonstrate the wound location they often move their hand around a couple times before they settle on the location. They are seen feeling around the back of the head with their fingers and adjusting the location. We have no visual reference for the back of our own head and this is why they have to feel their fingers on their head and move it around some. One of the most common clips of Dr Jones doing this shows him raising the wound twice going from very low temporal occipital to much higher in the occipital parietal. Others like Dr Dulany have moved the wound. In the famous Nova doc he places his hand in the O.C. and says "Occpital Parietal". Yet in an older photo he is hovering his hand above his head(Not touching) and places the wound closer to the official wound. We have to give some leeway to the wound positions described. But even if we do the front of the official parietal wound and the Parkland staffs locations are miles apart. The same with the lower or rear part of the wound. The official wound comes nowhere near as low and behind the ear as the official wound. Dr Baxter stated openly that he told the staff if they tried to make money off of this he would ruin their careers. In the 80's Crenshaw published a book and the Dr Baxter along with Jenkins, Carrico and maybe Grossman took part in a cheap hit piece on Crenshaw. I say cheap because the author(The publisher of the J.A.M.A journal) made the libelous claim the "We can't prove a negative but we don't know if Crenshaw was even in the room that day." Wow! Of course at least 3 people testified to the WC decades before that Crenshaw was there. Dr Curtis and Nurse Henchcliffe and even Dr Baxter himself! Their willingness to imply a slanderous claim that he might have lied about even being there without checking makes me think it was a cheap hit piece and we should not take it to seriously. It is well known that the WC lawyers asked almost all witness to state for the record the other personnel they saw in the room that day. Not hard to check that even before searchable PDF's.

For anyone trying to determine if JFK's head/chin bottomed out on his chest there are a few things to consider. Images online often show a person touching the chin to the chest by tucking the chin in as well as rotating the head forward. If you tuck the chin in you reach the chest with maybe 25 degrees less rotation. I assume JFK would not be tucking his chin in because that is a backward motion. I think the better test is shown in the images below. The woman is simply rotating the head forward and that makes a big difference. JFK was leaning forward about 13 degrees as his middle back area shows(Red line), and his shoulders were hunched forward as seen in his upper back upper back(Yellow line). The woman in the image below has her upper back modified to match the hunching of JFK's upper back(Yellow line). The neck and head have been rotated forward to place her chin back on the chest. The main point here is when we take the torso and shoulders into account her head rotates all the way to a horizontal position before hitting the chest. JFK is about 40 degrees short of that in 313. JFK's head is 40 degrees short of hitting his chest. Even cutting that in half he is nowhere near his chin hitting his chest in the Z film, imo.

Whatever processing that was done to clean up that clip makes it hard to judge. The head movement can be misleading because we only get one single frame to evaluate it. There are other frames in which Jackie and J.C. make similar movement of 2 to 3 inches. In those frames we get to see the movement in the context of the frames before and after. What is clear is they are not making a violent movement. But we can do the math and it shows his head was moving forward from 3 to 6 mph. If his head moved during both the shutter open and shutter closed time it was 3 mph. If all the moment happened while the frame was open at 313 then 6 mph. The head movement of Jackie and J.C. are pretty solid proof that those head movements are not violent. I think anyone who is going to consider the bounce back theory should sit down and duplicate the position. I think it will be obvious that his head was at least 20 degrees short of making contact with his chest. It could still be argued that the head hit the chest in between 313 and 314 when the shutter was closed. But there is no evidence in the Z film that proves the head bounced off the chest.

The gas taking longer to leave the barrel is another thing I did not consider. Would the surface area on the rear of the bullet vs the surface area at the back of the barrel be considered when calculating the force applied? Would the back of the barrel be the shell and I guess the surface area on the inside back surface of the shell?

It looks like JFK has his head leaning forward 35 degrees at fr312 and 50 degrees at fr313. I have to rotate my head 40 degrees more before my chin starts to bottom out on my chest. My head has to be horizontal for the chin to hit the chest. Maybe his chin could hit between 313 and 314, but I don't see any photographic evidence that his chin bounced off his chest or that his head reached anywhere near the end of its forward range. I also have doubts about characterizing his forward head movement as violent. Jackie and J.C. both make similar head moments earlier. From 293 to 294 Jackie moves her head forward approx 3 inches. It should be farther than it looks or measures since she is moving toward the camera as well as to her left. I would think the 313 head movement is from a rear shot but does indicate a great force that would cause the head to bounce backward.

I think the kickback just takes longer to spend the initial energy from the gas expanding. It has to move backwards a couple inches and push into the arm to spend its energy. The bullet on the hand has long left the barrel. Seems to be some debate online about whether the equal and opposite reaction of the bullet moving forward causes the gun to go backwards or others say the gases expanding down the barrel cause the recoil. I can't see how a bullet could affect the kickback if it's not in contact with the rifle while moving down the Barrel. I could see it's inhibiting The Escape of the gas while it's in the barrel and that contributing to the kickback. I don't think I should speculate any further cuz it feels like I could be completely wrong in the end.

If you push the head forward how much tension is generated that would cause the head to recoil backwards? If I pull my head forward to the chest then apply a lot of pressure and let go my head bounce back an inch or two. So equal and opposite forces may still add to the movement but I don't think muscular tension or compression of the tissue and fat causes much of a reaction at all. Did JFK's head bounce off his chest? Reproducing the position I find my head will hit the the chest when my head is pointed down by 70 degrees. JFK had his head down by about 35 degrees. It does not look to me like his head ever came close to bottoming out on his chest.

I have seen examples of firing squads shooting people in the back of the head and sometimes the head moves toward the shooter. But which way the head moves often is dictated by the manner in which the body folds as it collapses. If the knees buckle first the knees go forward causing the torso to lean back which causes the head to flop forward from the torso moving backwards. Other times the torso breaks at the waist first. Then the torso rocks forward causing the head to flop backwards. If a person was standing sideways to the shooter a similar reaction may happen if one knee buckles before the other. There seems to be an immediacy to the reaction in the knees which makes me if it is a neurological reaction or kinetic energy transferring to the knees causing them to move in the only direction they bend, or both.

The storm drain theory bothers me. I have heard the drain pipe goes all the way to the river which means even a small person would have a very long escape route. I think the confined area the shooter would occupy means the muzzle blast would extend out of the drain opening and be visible the the witnesses on Elm. If someone like Hargis saw or was alerted to the muzzle blast he would be in the drain in seconds. Once he popped the lid off and dropped into the drain he could have his gun pointing at the shooter butt as they tried to crawl away. I think the shooter would be a rat in a trap. A quick get away would be impossible. So I just wonder if a shooter would set themselves up for that slow and egress.