The Police and Harvey Lee Oswald

[Paul Jolliffe]

3 hours ago, Steve Thomas said:

Mark,

Sorry. The correct link is:

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=57753&relPageId=109

 

Rankin had asked Hoover to find the source for the description of the shooter broadcast by the police at 12:45 pm on the 22nd of Nov.

Hoover wrote him back and said that according to the police, the source was from an "unidentified citizen". By January of 64, Brennan had certainly been identified.

Steve Thomas

Steve,

This would seem to have a bearing on my point from yesterday: I doubt that the DPD themselves were the source of the description broadcast at 12:45 because Sawyer claimed he'd received information from two sources,  the second of which was an unnamed Dallas Sheriff's Deputy. (The first source, of course, was our unknown "35 year old man".) 

The "Sheriff's Deputy" story could have easily been disproved, if it was false - if a Sheriff's Deputy did NOT actually tell Sawyer about someone's claim that Charles Givens (supposedly) had information about the shooter.  Sawyer implied this Sheriff's Deputy received this information from an unknown citizen.

If that was all a pack of lies, then Sawyer ran the real risk that the FBI would disprove it easily. 

I speculated that the same man with whom Sawyer spoke briefly at 12:43 was the same source for the Sheriff's Deputy. Either this Sheriff's Deputy did or did not approach Sawyer soon after and relay this unknown witness's claim that Givens had important information. 

But what makes this all so suspicious is the fact that Givens was no longer in the building, and he had not yet talked to any official. So how could any law enforcement officer (or anyone else, really) then know what  Givens did  (or didn't) see, if he wasn't around to be questioned yet?

No, this mysterious informer could not have been a police officer. This person was an outsider, and it sure seems he was a conspirator, intent on directing the police to an easily malleable witness, Charles Givens.  Givens ("a colored boy") really did have previous run-ins with the law, which made him vulnerable to pressure to produce a statement "identifying" "Oswald."

I bet that's why Givens' name was initially given to the Dallas Sheriff's Deputy - he'd say what the conspirators wanted him to say!

Sawyer as much as said so right in his testimony to Belin:

Mr. BELIN. What do you mean the colored boy that worked in that depository?
Mr. SAWYER. He is one that had a previous record in the narcotics, and he was supposed to have been a witness to the man being on that floor. He was supposed to have been a witness to Oswald being there.
Mr. BELIN. Would Charles Givens have been that boy?
Mr. SAWYER. Yes, I think that is the name, and I put out a description on him

 

[Paul Jolliffe]

8 hours ago, Steve Thomas said:

Mark,

J. Edgar Hoover wrote a letter to J. Lee Rankin on January 14, 1964 that the Dallas Police Department had provided this description of the assailant based on the description provided by an unknown citizen, of a man seen running from the Texas School Book Depository immediately after the assassination. This unknown man had never reported to the Sheriff’s office as instructed.

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...p;relPageId=109

On November 2, 1964 ( two months after the Warren Report was published) Rankin again asked Hoover to find out where that description came from. Hoover responded with a letter on November 12, 1963 that, according to the Dallas police the information came from an ‘unidentified citizen’.”

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...mp;relPageId=72 -

The description had nothing to do with Brennan.

Steve Thomas

Steve,

It is really fascinating that two months AFTER the publication of the 888 page Warren Report (and just days before the publication of the 26 volumes of Hearings and Evidence), Rankin was still writing Hoover, trying to pin down the source of the 12:45 description. 

At that late date, the die was cast - the WR had already been published, and its claims were open for all to read! The writers of the report were careful to use weasel words ("probably" and "primarily'") when implying Sawyer's source was Brennan. (WR, page 5.)

So Steve, why did Rankin care at that moment? Was he subtly trying to pressure Hoover into some sort of belated "official" finding that would settle that nagging question once and for all?

Might Rankin have feared that careful readers would discern the problem (they did!) and try to track down the mystery man themselves? And if  successful, couldn't that lead to an unraveling of the official "solution"?

Is that why Rankin was still worried about this critical point seven weeks after the publication of the Report itself?

[Mark Stevens]

43 minutes ago, Paul Jolliffe said:

Steve,

This would seem to have a bearing on my point from yesterday: I doubt that the DPD themselves were the source of the description broadcast at 12:45 because Sawyer claimed he'd received information from two sources,  the second of which was an unnamed Dallas Sheriff's Deputy. (The first source, of course, was our unknown "35 year old man".) 

Who is the voice on the radio giving the description?

[Tony Krome]

On 7/23/2020 at 9:27 PM, Steve Thomas said:

 

“Attention Elm and Houston is reported to be an unknown white male, all squads. Attention all squads. The suspect in the shooting at approximately thirty, slender build, height five feet ten inches, weight one hundred sixty-five pounds, reported to be armed with what is thought to be a 30 caliber rifle. Attention all squads. The suspect from Elm and Houston is reported to be an unknown white male about thirty, slender build, five feet ten inches tall, one hundred sixty-five pounds, armed with what is thought to be a 30-30 rifle. No further description at this time, or information. 12:45.”

 

No one knows where this description came from.

 

Curry told reporters that the DPD did not have anyone who saw a rifle. He went on to tell reporters that he did read something about that in the papers.