Lee Oswald’s Departure from the TSBD

[J. Raymond Carroll]

The only way you can put him into the theater before Brewer saw him is to do it without his wearing a jacket, i.e., without his going home to get it.

As I indicated earlier in this thread, I believe Earlene Roberts fatally undermined the probative value of her clothing identification when she admitted to her poor eyesight and admitted that her attention was elsewhere. The evidence that he left 1026 Beckley wearing a jacket is both implausible (it was too warm for a jacket) and unpersuasive, IMO.

I think it's fairly plain that it was Oswald who ducked into Brewer's store.

Well admittedly I was not there when it happened, and admittedly your view is definitely the majority view, but I for one see grounds for real doubt that this was how the deal went down.

[W]e're still left with the question of where he was from the time he got out of Whaley's cab to the time he was arrested (which is effectively the same as saying "from the time when Tippit was shot").

According to the reports we have from his interrogators, he said he he went to his room and changed his clothes, then went to the movies. It seems you have a problem with that, while I do not.

Edited October 25, 2008 by J. Raymond Carroll

[Steve Mcdonagh]

Hi,

Are there any known photos of Oswald in or around dealey plaza after he was seen inside the TSBD? - With so many cameras around, one would think that someone would have still been taking pictures.

Thanks - Steve

[Duke Lane]

...I attempted to postulate Oswald's escape from Dallas in a earlier post, to which you made a rather sarcastic and nonsensical reply about Oswald stealing an elephant from the zoo and charging out of town! So maybe we can now hear your suggestion.

You asked me about Red Bird Airport being close to downtown Oak Cliff, which it sort of is. I replied:

...I'd think that until someone was able to fill in those kinds of gaps [that I wrote about] before they can hypothesize an "escape" via Redbird or elsewhere, that such speculation has about as much validity as the possibility that Oswald was actually headed to the Dallas Zoo (only a few blocks from where he was, in the direction he was supposedly heading, and also accessible by McWatters' Marsalis bus) to "bulldoze" his way out of Dallas on the back of an elephant.

My point, since you missed it, was simply that because something was "nearby" doesn't make it a destination. He was headed to Jack Ruby's place ... he was going to the Harlandale "safe house" ... he was going to Red Bird ... ad nauseum. There's nothing more than mere proximity on which to form the basis of such speculation, and they have about as much validity as the "zoo" scenario.

"Busybody Brewer" didn't follow Oswald because he was "sweating a dollar ticket fee" that's nonsense, Brewer's testimony makes it perfectly clear as to why he became suspicious of Oswald and subsequently followed him...

So there's really nothing at all surprising concerning Brewer's actions, any sensible, alert person would have acted the same way. As to why Oswald never attempted "getting the heck out of Dodge" Oswald may have been trying to do exactly that before he got "side tracked" into killing Tippit.

I happen to disagree with your assessment about what "any sensible, alert person" would have done: it's a generalization that fails as often as not. Someone commented to me that "any" cop who heard about Tippit getting shot in Oak Cliff would "naturally" connect that to the shooting of the President; makes sense, right? But we find homicide Detective Jim Leavelle testifying that "we didn't put them together at the time." Surely, if "any" cop would put the two together, then certainly a veteran homicide detective would do the same, wouldn't you think? Generalizations are generally meaningless.

Brewer said that the radio "kept reconstructing what had happened and what they had heard, and they talked about it in general. There wasn't too much to talk about. They didn't have all the facts, and just repeated them mostly. And they said a patrolman had been shot in Oak Cliff," so the question is, do we know when an announcement about Tippit was first made on a public radio station?

That goes to whether Brewer was suspicious of Oswald because of the proximity of Tippit's shooting, or whether it was more generally related to JFK's, or whether it was simply that he thought Oswald "looked funny" and thought him "suspicious" for that reason alone. Just because he remembered that it happened that way doesn't mean that it's true.

It's like his description of the police sirens: according to him, they were approaching from the east but turned around at Zangs, which he couldn't have seen from inside the store, no matter whether or where they turned around. It's a "fact" of which he has no personal knowledge and couldn't have had.

Now here's the odd thing about it: while he said that the cops turned around and went back east, Julia Postal was standing in front of the theater looking west after the police cars had gone that way, and her boss had left the theater going west following the police cars ... that, according to Brewer, didn't go by his store nor, therefore, the theater, so Julia and her boss must've been imagining things.

If Brewer was wrong about having heard about a cop getting killed nearby, as it appears he was wrong about the sirens "doing a U-turn ... at Zangs," then the whole deal about what "any" sensible, alert person is out the window, and Brewer making a case why he was a sensible, alert person when the reality may simply be that he became suspicious for no explainable reason beyond "gut instinct."

... And then we get to the question: how is it that Oswald "got 'side tracked' into killing Tippit?" Is this the sole role of those nebulous co-conspirators you've hypothesized? They don't seem to have done anything else except get Oswald captured and killed. So is their role that of the "masterminds" who managed to get Oswald to shoot JFK and then had him kill a cop to "tie up loose ends?"

[Duke Lane]

The only way you can put him into the theater before Brewer saw him is to do it without his wearing a jacket, i.e., without his going home to get it.

As I indicated earlier in this thread, I believe Earlene Roberts fatally undermined the probative value of her clothing identification when she admitted to her poor eyesight and admitted that her attention was elsewhere. The evidence that he left 1026 Beckley wearing a jacket is both implausible (it was too warm for a jacket) and unpersuasive, IMO.

But it was good enough to identify Oswald's face, which was smaller than his jacket and apparently made less noise than his zipper? She could make a mistake about a relatively large jacket, but be absolutely positive of Oswald's identity?

I think it's fairly plain that it was Oswald who ducked into Brewer's store.

Well admittedly I was not there when it happened, and admittedly your view is definitely the majority view, but I for one see grounds for real doubt that this was how the deal went down.

[W]e're still left with the question of where he was from the time he got out of Whaley's cab to the time he was arrested (which is effectively the same as saying "from the time when Tippit was shot").

According to the reports we have from his interrogators, he said he he went to his room and changed his clothes, then went to the movies. It seems you have a problem with that, while I do not.

Well, admittedly I was not there when it happened, and admittedly your view is definitely the majority view, but I for one see grounds for real doubt that this was how the deal went down. I guess it comes down to how selective one wants to be with Earlene Roberts' evidence, whether she was completely right, part-wrong and part-right, or completely wrong.

[James Richards]

Hi,

Are there any known photos of Oswald in or around dealey plaza after he was seen inside the TSBD? - With so many cameras around, one would think that someone would have still been taking pictures.

Thanks - Steve

Steve,

This is far from definitive, but 10 minutes after the shooting, Jim Murray snapped an image of the crowd gathering on the grass area next to Elm Street. In the background, strolling alongside the TSBD were two men - one of which does look like Oswald, in my opinion of course.

I submit that this is the man Roger Craig saw climb aboard the Rambler on Elm.

FWIW.

James

[Royce Bierma]

The only way you can put him into the theater before Brewer saw him is to do it without his wearing a jacket, i.e., without his going home to get it.

As I indicated earlier in this thread, I believe Earlene Roberts fatally undermined the probative value of her clothing identification when she admitted to her poor eyesight and admitted that her attention was elsewhere. The evidence that he left 1026 Beckley wearing a jacket is both implausible (it was too warm for a jacket) and unpersuasive, IMO.

But it was good enough to identify Oswald's face, which was smaller than his jacket and apparently made less noise than his zipper? She could make a mistake about a relatively large jacket, but be absolutely positive of Oswald's identity?

I think it's fairly plain that it was Oswald who ducked into Brewer's store.

Well admittedly I was not there when it happened, and admittedly your view is definitely the majority view, but I for one see grounds for real doubt that this was how the deal went down.

[W]e're still left with the question of where he was from the time he got out of Whaley's cab to the time he was arrested (which is effectively the same as saying "from the time when Tippit was shot").

According to the reports we have from his interrogators, he said he he went to his room and changed his clothes, then went to the movies. It seems you have a problem with that, while I do not.

Well, admittedly I was not there when it happened, and admittedly your view is definitely the majority view, but I for one see grounds for real doubt that this was how the deal went down. I guess it comes down to how selective one wants to be with Earlene Roberts' evidence, whether she was completely right, part-wrong and part-right, or completely wrong.

Duke, speaking of Earlene Roberts' testimony, earlier you referred to her mention of hearing a car horn peeping, and the matter of two officers which were in the "police" car. I would be interested in your take on this, especially since at the end of one of your posts you wrote, "Think Frank Ellsworth" Could you enlarge on that?

Roy Bierma

[J. Raymond Carroll]

I submit that this is the man Roger Craig saw climb aboard the Rambler on Elm.

FWIW.

James

James (and other photo experts) The Warren Commission estimated that Lee Oswald began walking up Elm Street at about 12.33. What photos/films should we look at to get an idea of the scene that confronted him as he came out of the TSBD?

[Jack White]

...I attempted to postulate Oswald's escape from Dallas in a earlier post, to which you made a rather sarcastic and nonsensical reply about Oswald stealing an elephant from the zoo and charging out of town! So maybe we can now hear your suggestion.

You asked me about Red Bird Airport being close to downtown Oak Cliff, which it sort of is. I replied:

...I'd think that until someone was able to fill in those kinds of gaps [that I wrote about] before they can hypothesize an "escape" via Redbird or elsewhere, that such speculation has about as much validity as the possibility that Oswald was actually headed to the Dallas Zoo (only a few blocks from where he was, in the direction he was supposedly heading, and also accessible by McWatters' Marsalis bus) to "bulldoze" his way out of Dallas on the back of an elephant.

My point, since you missed it, was simply that because something was "nearby" doesn't make it a destination. He was headed to Jack Ruby's place ... he was going to the Harlandale "safe house" ... he was going to Red Bird ... ad nauseum. There's nothing more than mere proximity on which to form the basis of such speculation, and they have about as much validity as the "zoo" scenario.

"Busybody Brewer" didn't follow Oswald because he was "sweating a dollar ticket fee" that's nonsense, Brewer's testimony makes it perfectly clear as to why he became suspicious of Oswald and subsequently followed him...

So there's really nothing at all surprising concerning Brewer's actions, any sensible, alert person would have acted the same way. As to why Oswald never attempted "getting the heck out of Dodge" Oswald may have been trying to do exactly that before he got "side tracked" into killing Tippit.

I happen to disagree with your assessment about what "any sensible, alert person" would have done: it's a generalization that fails as often as not. Someone commented to me that "any" cop who heard about Tippit getting shot in Oak Cliff would "naturally" connect that to the shooting of the President; makes sense, right? But we find homicide Detective Jim Leavelle testifying that "we didn't put them together at the time." Surely, if "any" cop would put the two together, then certainly a veteran homicide detective would do the same, wouldn't you think? Generalizations are generally meaningless.

Brewer said that the radio "kept reconstructing what had happened and what they had heard, and they talked about it in general. There wasn't too much to talk about. They didn't have all the facts, and just repeated them mostly. And they said a patrolman had been shot in Oak Cliff," so the question is, do we know when an announcement about Tippit was first made on a public radio station?

That goes to whether Brewer was suspicious of Oswald because of the proximity of Tippit's shooting, or whether it was more generally related to JFK's, or whether it was simply that he thought Oswald "looked funny" and thought him "suspicious" for that reason alone. Just because he remembered that it happened that way doesn't mean that it's true.

It's like his description of the police sirens: according to him, they were approaching from the east but turned around at Zangs, which he couldn't have seen from inside the store, no matter whether or where they turned around. It's a "fact" of which he has no personal knowledge and couldn't have had.

Now here's the odd thing about it: while he said that the cops turned around and went back east, Julia Postal was standing in front of the theater looking west after the police cars had gone that way, and her boss had left the theater going west following the police cars ... that, according to Brewer, didn't go by his store nor, therefore, the theater, so Julia and her boss must've been imagining things.

If Brewer was wrong about having heard about a cop getting killed nearby, as it appears he was wrong about the sirens "doing a U-turn ... at Zangs," then the whole deal about what "any" sensible, alert person is out the window, and Brewer making a case why he was a sensible, alert person when the reality may simply be that he became suspicious for no explainable reason beyond "gut instinct."

... And then we get to the question: how is it that Oswald "got 'side tracked' into killing Tippit?" Is this the sole role of those nebulous co-conspirators you've hypothesized? They don't seem to have done anything else except get Oswald captured and killed. So is their role that of the "masterminds" who managed to get Oswald to shoot JFK and then had him kill a cop to "tie up loose ends?"

Excellent.

Jack

[David G. Healy]

...I attempted to postulate Oswald's escape from Dallas in a earlier post, to which you made a rather sarcastic and nonsensical reply about Oswald stealing an elephant from the zoo and charging out of town! So maybe we can now hear your suggestion.

You asked me about Red Bird Airport being close to downtown Oak Cliff, which it sort of is. I replied:

...I'd think that until someone was able to fill in those kinds of gaps [that I wrote about] before they can hypothesize an "escape" via Redbird or elsewhere, that such speculation has about as much validity as the possibility that Oswald was actually headed to the Dallas Zoo (only a few blocks from where he was, in the direction he was supposedly heading, and also accessible by McWatters' Marsalis bus) to "bulldoze" his way out of Dallas on the back of an elephant.

My point, since you missed it, was simply that because something was "nearby" doesn't make it a destination. He was headed to Jack Ruby's place ... he was going to the Harlandale "safe house" ... he was going to Red Bird ... ad nauseum. There's nothing more than mere proximity on which to form the basis of such speculation, and they have about as much validity as the "zoo" scenario.

"Busybody Brewer" didn't follow Oswald because he was "sweating a dollar ticket fee" that's nonsense, Brewer's testimony makes it perfectly clear as to why he became suspicious of Oswald and subsequently followed him...

So there's really nothing at all surprising concerning Brewer's actions, any sensible, alert person would have acted the same way. As to why Oswald never attempted "getting the heck out of Dodge" Oswald may have been trying to do exactly that before he got "side tracked" into killing Tippit.

I happen to disagree with your assessment about what "any sensible, alert person" would have done: it's a generalization that fails as often as not. Someone commented to me that "any" cop who heard about Tippit getting shot in Oak Cliff would "naturally" connect that to the shooting of the President; makes sense, right? But we find homicide Detective Jim Leavelle testifying that "we didn't put them together at the time." Surely, if "any" cop would put the two together, then certainly a veteran homicide detective would do the same, wouldn't you think? Generalizations are generally meaningless.

Brewer said that the radio "kept reconstructing what had happened and what they had heard, and they talked about it in general. There wasn't too much to talk about. They didn't have all the facts, and just repeated them mostly. And they said a patrolman had been shot in Oak Cliff," so the question is, do we know when an announcement about Tippit was first made on a public radio station?

That goes to whether Brewer was suspicious of Oswald because of the proximity of Tippit's shooting, or whether it was more generally related to JFK's, or whether it was simply that he thought Oswald "looked funny" and thought him "suspicious" for that reason alone. Just because he remembered that it happened that way doesn't mean that it's true.

It's like his description of the police sirens: according to him, they were approaching from the east but turned around at Zangs, which he couldn't have seen from inside the store, no matter whether or where they turned around. It's a "fact" of which he has no personal knowledge and couldn't have had.

Now here's the odd thing about it: while he said that the cops turned around and went back east, Julia Postal was standing in front of the theater looking west after the police cars had gone that way, and her boss had left the theater going west following the police cars ... that, according to Brewer, didn't go by his store nor, therefore, the theater, so Julia and her boss must've been imagining things.

If Brewer was wrong about having heard about a cop getting killed nearby, as it appears he was wrong about the sirens "doing a U-turn ... at Zangs," then the whole deal about what "any" sensible, alert person is out the window, and Brewer making a case why he was a sensible, alert person when the reality may simply be that he became suspicious for no explainable reason beyond "gut instinct."

... And then we get to the question: how is it that Oswald "got 'side tracked' into killing Tippit?" Is this the sole role of those nebulous co-conspirators you've hypothesized? They don't seem to have done anything else except get Oswald captured and killed. So is their role that of the "masterminds" who managed to get Oswald to shoot JFK and then had him kill a cop to "tie up loose ends?"

Excellent.

Jack

amen....

[J. Raymond Carroll]

Brewer said that the radio "kept reconstructing what had happened and what they had heard, and they talked about it in general. There wasn't too much to talk about. They didn't have all the facts, and just repeated them mostly. And they said a patrolman had been shot in Oak Cliff," so the question is, do we know when an announcement about Tippit was first made on a public radio station?

Don't have the answer, but David Blackburst says the first mention of the Tippit shooting on NBC Television came at 1.49.

1:49 "A Dallas policeman has been shot to death two miles from the scene of the assassination. A suspect is now in custody"

http://www.jfk-online.com/dbmedcovlho.html

[Denis Pointing]

Brewer said that

Edited December 20, 2009 by Denis Pointing

[Duke Lane]

Unless you've anything more concrete concerning the time an announcement was made that a "patrolman had been shot in Oak Cliff" you have no solid reason to doubt Brewer's testimony on that point. And that testimony makes it more than clear that he linked Oswald's furtive demeanor with the radio announcement of a patrol officer being shot in the immediate vicinity. But even if Brewer only became suspicious due to "gut instinct" so what? That doesn't change the fact that he DID become suspicious, for whatever reason, and he DID follow Oswald.

I'm going to take a book by NBC as fairly authoritative since they were pretty much in the thick of "media" at the time. Still are, in fact.

If "first mention" of Tippit's shooting indeed came at 1:49, that was three minutes-plus after the announcement over the police radio that "We have information that a suspect just went in the Texas Theater on West Jefferson," which was after Julia Postal called, which was in turn after Johnny Brewer went into the theater after Oswald, which again was after Brewer had seen Oswald and followed him to the theater. So in effect, the argument is that Brewer linked Oswald to an announcement that wouldn't be made for something like five minutes after he left his store.

I'm thinking that it wouldn't normally have worked that way ... but it was an unusual day, so maybe anything is possible ... including that Brewer misremembered the sequence of events in the same way that he was mistaken about the sirens taking a U-turn and the cops racing back toward Patton.

In fact, since Brewer was inside the theater when Oswald was taken into custody at about 1:52, he never actually heard any announcement about Tippit having just been killed.

If those "nebulous co-conspirators" which I "hypothesized" were able to "mastermind" the capture and killing of Oswald then many would say they did a excellent job of it. But I dont belive for one minute that was their "sole role". Nor do I belive they were able to orchestrate the killing of Tippit to "tie up loose ends". This is certainly nothing that I've ever suggested, why second guess me?

Help me out then: since you've attributed all of the shooting to Oswald, what did these others do?

[Jack White]

I have an uneasy suspicion about Brewer and his role in Texas Theater events.

I have an uneasy suspicion about the purported Julia Postal story.

There were too many Oswalds at the theater at differing times.

The police battalion arrived en masse with little provocation or good cause.

It all smells of a set up.

Jack

[Steve Mcdonagh]

Thanks James,

10 Minutes after you say, interesting.

Steve

Hi,

Are there any known photos of Oswald in or around dealey plaza after he was seen inside the TSBD? - With so many cameras around, one would think that someone would have still been taking pictures.

Thanks - Steve

Steve,

This is far from definitive, but 10 minutes after the shooting, Jim Murray snapped an image of the crowd gathering on the grass area next to Elm Street. In the background, strolling alongside the TSBD were two men - one of which does look like Oswald, in my opinion of course.

I submit that this is the man Roger Craig saw climb aboard the Rambler on Elm.

FWIW.

James

[Steve Mcdonagh]

Hi Duke,

Do you believe Oswald played any part in the events of that day?

Thanks - Steve