Proof of Motorcade Stopping?

[Greg Burnham]

It is amazing how much attention is incorrectly paid to the question of whether or not the limo stopped. The question that needs to be asked is just how fast was Greer going when he was looking back at JFK?

Zero mph.

[Jon G. Tidd]

The big question for me is, who would risk shooting through the windshield from the front?

The shooters, and I believe there were shooters plural, were extraordinarily careful to avoid wounding anyone but JFK. Connolly and Tague were unavoidable collateral damage, more or less. A shot through the windshield from the front would have been hazardous for lots of persons in addition to JFK. It would have been a low-percentage shot.

Because I believe the shooters were carefully trained professionals, I find it difficult to believe one of them would have risked such a shot. Such a shot surely risked exposing a frontal shooter, which the plotters wanted to avoid.

Edited January 21, 2015 by Jon G. Tidd

[Greg Burnham]

There was no t+t hole in the windshield. That is a Fetzer myth based on a bad copy of the Altgens 1-6. Another rabbit trail, created to divert serious researchers from determining what actually did happen....

Nice try. Guilt by association is fallacious. Just because many here no longer respect Fetzer does not automatically mean that everything he has promoted is false.

Moreover, our very good, but now deceased friends, Doug Weldon, Jack White, Rich DellaRosa, and John Ritchson, among others, were among the first (on a public forum) to point out the possibility--and provide compelling evidence for--a T&T hole in the windshield long before you even debuted on our JFKresearch Assassination Forum and prior to Fetzer making the claim! As the Archivist of Record for that forum, those conversations began in earnest back in 1999.

[David Josephs]

Sounds to me now you are preaching and not discussing Robert. I appreciate the passion of your conclusions and convictions yet referencing yourself is not exactly authenticating anything.

John Connally: We had just made the turn, well, when I heard what I thought was a shot. I heard this noise which I immediately took to be a rifle shot.

Mr. KELLERMAN. As we turned off Houston onto Elm and made the short little dip to the left going down grade, as I said, we were away from buildings, and were there was a sign on the side of the road which I don't recall what it was or what it said, but we no more than passed that and you are out in the open, and there is a report like a firecracker, pop.

BREHM AFFIDAVIT: When the President's automobile was very close to him and he could see the President's face very well, the President was seated, but was leaning forward when he stiffened perceptibly at the same instant what appeared to be a rifle shot sounded. According to BREHM, the President seemed do to stiffen and come to a pause when another shot sounded and the President appeared to be badly hit in the head. BREHM said when the President was hit by the second shot, he could notice the President's hair fly up, and then roll over to his side, as Mrs. KENNEDY was apparently pulling him in that direction

NEWMAN: from the Shaw Trial testimony: If this is the THIRD shot... wouldn't there have been a few more up Elm?

And since Moorman and Hill are directly across from Newman - wouldn't that be their third shot as well?

Mrs. HILL - After the President was shot, but I wouldn't---it wasn't with the first shot. To me he wasn't hit when the first shot hit.
Mr. SPECTER - And what is the basis for your saying that, Mrs. Hill?
Mrs. HILL - Well, I just think that he was hit after Kennedy was hit because, well, Just the way that it looked, I would say that he was hit later.
Mr. SPECTER - Now, do you associate the time that Governor Connally appeared to have been hit with any specific shot that you heard?
Mrs. HILL - The second.
Mr. SPECTER - And what specifically did you observe at the time of the second shot?
Mrs. HILL - Well, that's what I thought had happened---that they had hit someone in the front part of the car.
Mr. SPECTER - And what did you observe at the time of the third shot?
Mrs. HILL - President Kennedy was hit again and he had further buffeted his body and I didn't realize at the time what it was-I remarked to my friends in the police station that day--did she notice his hair standing up, because it did. It just rippled up like this.

Mr. HUDSON - Well there was a young fellow, oh, I would judge his age about in his late twenties. He said he had been looking for a place to park and he walked up there and he said he finally just taken a place over there in one of them parking lots, and he come on down there and said he worked over there on Industrial and me and him both just sat there first on those steps. When the motorcade turned off of Houston onto Elm, we got up and stood up, me and him both. He was on the left side and I was on the right and so the first shot rung out and, of course, I didn't realize it was a shot, what was taking place right at that present time, and when the second one rung out, the motorcade had done got further on down Elm, and you see, I was trying to get a good look at President Kennedy. I happened to be looking right at him when that bullet hit him - the second shot.
Mr. LIEBELER - That was when the bullet hit him in the head; is that correct?
Mr. HUDSON - Yes; it looked like it ht him somewhere along about a little bit behind the ear and a little bit above the ear.

Robert - could you please address how these statements do not support a shot heard and seen prior to Z313

I will go take another look at that thread yet witnesses hearing something does not authenticate it, it just aids in proving that the goverment's side of the story and the physical evidence offered is worthless in determining the crime.

[Greg Burnham]

The big question for me is, who would risk shooting through the windshield from the front?

The shooters, and I believe there were shooters plural, were extraordinarily careful to avoid wounding anyone but JFK. Connolly and Tague were unavoidable collateral damage, more or less. A shot through the windshield from the front would have been hazardous for lots of persons in addition to JFK. It would have been a low-percentage shot.

Because I believe the shooters were carefully trained professionals, I find it difficult to believe one of them would have risked such a shot. Such a shot surely risked exposing a frontal shooter, which the plotters wanted to avoid.

Police snipers, as well as military or otherwise "professional" snipers (aka: assassins), have been regularly trained on accurately taking out targets through glass for decades prior to 1963. High powered rifle rounds can easily penetrate such material without unintended outcomes. Positioned properly, this is not a low percentage shot. Indeed, a shot from the south side of Elm has some tremendous advantages. As the limo bends around the "S" curve it acquires a position where it is approaching a potential sniper nearly head on and the vehicle is dropping below the sniper's horizontal line of sight giving him a slightly downward trajectory. One advantage to this position over the grassy knoll position is that there is much less "lateral" motion with which to contend. Besides adrenalin and lack of sufficient cover, lateral motion is perhaps a sniper's worst enemy.

Also keep in mind that:

1) JFK's Military Attache, Air Force General Godfrey McHugh, should have been seated in the front--between SA's Kellerman and Greer--where the attache customarily rides. Had he been in place a sniper would never have had a clear shot at JFK through the windshield.

2) The media press truck normally PRECEDES the presidential limousine in a motorcade so that the reporters can capture as many frontal still images and film footage of the president as possible. In Dallas they too were positioned much farther back in the motorcade.

So both the news truck and Military Attache were "out of the way" of a sniper's line of fire.

(And, as an aside, according to what Hoover told LBJ, "Connally was hit because he was in the way!" -- Ironic. But that's another topic... )

Edited January 21, 2015 by Greg Burnham

[Don Jeffries]

We had some lengthy discussions about the hole in the windshield on this forum in the past. As Greg notes, the fact that Jim Fetzer or any other individual researcher believes something doesn't automatically discredit (or substantiate) it.

I agree, Jon, that it seems implausible that an assassin would fire at the limo through the windshield. But there were several credible people who described, in detail, observing a bullet hole in the windshield. And the windshield was subsequently replaced. Could they have been mistaken? Sure. So could Weitzman and Boone, who signed sworn affidavits that the rifle found on the sixth floor was a German Mauser, when the Carcano was stamped "Made in Italy" on the barrel. So could the 59 witnesses, all independent of each other, who volunteered that the limo had stopped or nearly stopped at the time of the shooting.

The official narrative has always relied on countless witnesses being "mistaken" in the exact same way, on numerous different aspects of the assassination. The hole in the windshield is just one of these.

The case for conspiracy doesn't reply on the limo stopping or even slowing down, and it doesn't require a hole to have been in the windshield. But there is no reason for researchers to automatically accept that the witnesses who described such things were "mistaken," or to dismiss their testimony out of hand.

[David Josephs]

Good to see you posting again Greg...

That statement of Hoover's is fantastic...

Another fantastic statement: and we wonder why the evidence is so poor.

[Jon G. Tidd]

Don Jeffries,

I'm inclined to believe there was a hole in the windshield.

What perplexes me is that a shooter from the front would have had to contend with windshield glare as well as two rows of car occupants between the shooter and his target.

[Robert Prudhomme]

How do we know which direction the bullet went through the windshield, if it did indeed go through the windshield?

[Greg Burnham]

Thanks David.

Good post, Don.

Jon,

A sniper from the "left front" (Limo's POV) would have the sun essentially to his back. Due to the angle of the windshield's glass, i.e., it is not installed flat, the reflective glare off its surface would tend to "bounce up and away from" the sniper's location, IMO. The vast majority of reflective glare would tend to flash toward the NORTH side of Elm due to the angle of the windshield. Look at the image David posted above. Note the heavy glare from the windshield and chrome that is visible in frame Z-312, which was exposed by a camera located on the NORTH side of Elm. Reflected light ricochets, so to speak, off of the surface it strikes. That's why you position a mirror directly at yourself for viewing. If you were to go outside and stand in front of your car you will not be able to see your own refection in your angled windshield unless you stood so close that you could compensate for the angle or maybe if you knelt on the hood. But from a distance you would not be visible to yourself. I have not tested this recently, but I believe I am correct.

[Jon G. Tidd]

Greg,

Disagree as to the sun's position. At 12:30 p.m. Dallas time, the sun would have been overhead, pretty much.

The sun's rays would have reflected perpendicular to the windshield surface they hit.

You may be right. I think it would have been a chancy shot.

Who knows? If the plotter's objective was to kill JFK, a frontal shot may have made sense. In this case, I believe the plotters were connected to the cover-up. An issue worthy of discussion here, I believe.

[Robert Mady]

David, I have posted hundreds of pieces of evidence supporting the assassination four shot model, that in addition disprove every theory there is.

You want evidence please go read my threads and let me know what I have posted that is incorrect or misinterpreted.

[Robert Mady]

Don, how many more years of researching these factoids will it take to come to any sort of conclusion?

Does it make sense that the more we look into the minutia of the case the more complicated the conspiracy theories become.

Do you really believe that the conspirators would have dreamt up and executed an extremely complicated plan?

We are filling our time with more and more, but no solution is in sight, everyone praying for the next release of government secrets so we can have even more to mull over.

The assassination was not complicated, we are making it that way because we can't face the truth or we can't seem to separate our thinking from the lies that laid the foundation of our beliefs and we can't escape it's gravity.

[Greg Burnham]

Greg,

Disagree as to the sun's position. At 12:30 p.m. Dallas time, the sun would have been overhead, pretty much.

The sun's rays would have reflected perpendicular to the windshield surface they hit.

You may be right. I think it would have been a chancy shot.

Who knows? If the plotter's objective was to kill JFK, a frontal shot may have made sense. In this case, I believe the plotters were connected to the cover-up. An issue worthy of discussion here, I believe.

Oh no. Not again.

In the month of NOVEMBER the sun is NOT "pretty much" overhead. It is relatively LOW on the horizon when compared to the SUMMER when it is "pretty much" overhead.

Look at the SHADOWS in the Altgens photo below. Where is the LIGHT SOURCE (aka: the Sun)?

Where is the glare on the windshield?

[Thomas Graves]

Greg,

Disagree as to the sun's position. At 12:30 p.m. Dallas time, the sun would have been overhead, pretty much.

The sun's rays would have reflected perpendicular to the windshield surface they hit.

You may be right. I think it would have been a chancy shot.

Who knows? If the plotter's objective was to kill JFK, a frontal shot may have made sense. In this case, I believe the plotters were connected to the cover-up. An issue worthy of discussion here, I believe.

Oh no. Not again.

In the month of NOVEMBER the sun is NOT "pretty much" overhead. It is relatively LOW on the horizon when compared to the SUMMER when it is "pretty much" overhead.

Look at the SHADOWS in the Altgens photo below. Where is the LIGHT SOURCE (aka: the Sun)?

Where is the glare on the windshield?

I agree, Greg.

The sun is fairly low in the southern part of the sky even in mid-day in late November in Dallas.

The amazing thing is that it's like that every year. I think it has something to do with the fact that Dallas is significantly north of the equator, that the earth is tilted 23.5 degrees on its axis, that the earth's axis is, in the short term, always "pointed" at the sun in the same way, and that the earth's yearly journey around the sun is in the form of an ellipse rather than a circle.

So the sun was relatively low in the southern part of the sky in Dallas when JFK was assassinated, and that's why so many people on the TSBD steps and near the TSBD were shielding their eyes at 12:30 as they were watching what was "going down" to the south west of them, down on Elm Street.

--Tommy

Edited January 22, 2015 by Thomas Graves