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Tippit Motive and Rifle Chain of Evidence, looking for some guidance.


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3 hours ago, Tommy Tomlinson said:

I just watched one of the Sixth Floor Museum's online video discussions, about the day Oswald was shot.
One of the reporters talked about how he was keen to get into DPD to get footage of Oswald because, "It was the last chance any of us would get to see him alive..." he corrects himself, "I, mean LIVE... as in when he was gone we'd never get another chance an it would all be in stills..." it gets a chuckle... (also turns out that the fixer the network guys used to communicate with the 3rd floor was... Jack Ruby...)
The conversation continues, and just as the moderator moves to another subject Jim Leavelle interrupts and says something along the lines of, "Just cutting back to before... it WAS the last time anyone got to see him walking around alive!" which gets a less enthusiastic chuckle but Jim thinks it's hilarious.

If I'd had any doubts about the character of JL, they were removed in that instant.

Leavelle's Oswald joke erased any doubts in your mind about the character of JL in a good way Tommy?

Or a bad way?

The joke made you see Leavelle in a good light? Or, did Leavelle's morbid Oswald joke make you see him in a bad light?

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13 hours ago, Joe Bauer said:

Leavelle's Oswald joke erased any doubts in your mind about the character of JL in a good way Tommy?

Or a bad way?

The joke made you see Leavelle in a good light? Or, did Leavelle's morbid Oswald joke make you see him in a bad light?

Sorry... yes, reading that back it is a little vague.
Allow me to clarify... I see him in a very negative light.
This is the guy who was handcuffed to Oswald and was charged with his safely negotiating the suspect through the POLICE STATION in one piece.

If I'd been caught on film and shown to the world performing one of the most famous examples of dereliction of duty in history, I'd have to accept, and learn to live with, other people making jokes about the way I failed to keep a man alive... But I, for one, would struggle to grow a pair big enough to make jokes where the punchline is essentially, "Because my colleagues and I were so abysmal at our jobs, we let a guy get murdered... on national television... in our Police station... surrounded by officers... while I was handcuffed to him!"
In private, among close friends, I might consider making a self deprecating joke about... "hey... don't put me in charge of carrying those drinks to the next room... did you see what happened the last time someone asked me to take something to another room 
But a "It's funny... because he died!" joke in front of a room full of strangers, again, in front of a bunch of cameras... that either takes a complete lack of a moral compass, or is a sign of very poor judgement. 

If someone else on the panel had made the joke, and JL had looked uncomfortable, (which he would have every right to...) then I'd have considered it in slightly poor taste (even considering that most of them were news men, and bad taste humour goes with the territory) and maybe felt a little sympathy for an old man who had been continually humiliated on a global platform for over 50 years.
The fact that it was HIM making the joke left me with a sense of "Wow! This guy truly doesn't give a xxxx..."

 

Edited by Tommy Tomlinson
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Tommy my analogy would be one of JFK's Dallas motorcade limo security occupants ( driver Will Greer and Roy Kellerman ) making a morbid joke about JFK's death, years later in a taped public interview.  

Leavelle's demeanor in many later age interviews never seemed at all "sincerely" contrite or remorseful or guilt ridden imo, about his and his fellow DPD personnel negligence in allowing the most important criminal suspect in our history to be blown away right inside their own police department building and mere inches from Leavelle.

Oswald's security was ALL in their hands, no one else's. And they blew it.

Leavelle seemed clueless about the fact that the history books will always relate the Oswald killing as one of worst cases (if not THE worst) of highest importance security negligence of all time. It's a shameful legacy, one that Leavelle was part of, not one of quaint nostalgic remembrance imo.

Leavelle seems to relish the interview attention and the applause he gets when he is first introduced and after the interview wraps up. He's a celebrity! 

In my mind he was a dark time figure who was part of a shared negligence that resulted in the greatest truth destroying loss to the American people in our history.

And he always seemed like a JFK hating racist to me as well.

Not one of our best character American history heroes, that's for sure.

Was watching a You Tube Dallas TV station ( KRLD) archive video of the Dallas PD basement entry and exit scene this morning both before, during and after Ruby whacked Oswald inside. 

Not enough time right now to share some intriguing thoughts on this video, however, when the video is showing the press and police crowd inside the basement right before and right up to Oswald's shooting, you see one Dallas policeman right in the middle of the shooting area scene constantly and more than any other right up to just before Oswald is escorted in this area.

He takes up the entire view at times. Big hulking guy. Officer William "Blackie" Harrison. Ruby burst from right behind Harrison when he does Oswald.

Harrison was known as one of the closest cop friends of Ruby for years. There's some intrigue imo.

 

hqdefault.jpg?sqp=-oaymwEZCNACELwBSFXyq4

 
 
From the Morning of Sunday November 24th 1963 live footage of the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald by Dallas night club owner ...


 

 

 

 

Edited by Joe Bauer
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2 hours ago, Joe Bauer said:

Leavelle seems to relish the interview attention and the applause he gets when he is first introduced and after the interview wraps up. He's a celebrity! 

In my mind he was a dark time one who's shared negligence resulted in the greatest truth destroying loss to the American people in our history.

 

 

I believe Leavelle lied to me when I asked him back in 2003 who was the Secret Service agent who was present during Oswald's first interrogation on 11/22/63.

Steve Thomas

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Something just occurred to me, and I'm not sure whether it warrants another thread. I don't think so, since it follows on the path that this discussion has been heading... but can anyone tell me about Hosty and the DPD?
Did he talk to them prior to investigating Lee and Marina, or was the FBI observation all hush-hush?

If he was on "Oswald Watch" did he have any contacts or friends in the DPD? 
Was he in an official liaison with DPD? 
Or, maybe, was there any inter agency tension? Sort of "Get off our patch!" stuff?

Anything on this would be greatly appreciated.

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32 minutes ago, Tommy Tomlinson said:

If he was on "Oswald Watch" did he have any contacts or friends in the DPD? 
Was he in an official liaison with DPD? 
Or, maybe, was there any inter agency tension? Sort of "Get off our patch!" stuff?

Anything on this would be greatly appreciated.

Tommy,  from Hosty's 'Assignment Oswald' :- "Since I was in the intelligence unit of the Bureau, Revill and I frequently worked together."

Regarding the get off our patch stuff :- "Still climbing the stairs, Revill snorted, "Well, if you know that Oswald killed Kennedy, why the hell didn't you tell us?  Why didn't you tell us Oswald was in town and was a known Communist?"  "Jack I couldn't tell you.  You know Bureau policy, the need-to-know rule," I said.  I was referring to the Bureau's long-standing policy on espionage cases, that only those who "need to know" particular information are told.  For better or worse, the Bureau did not consider local police part of the need-to-know group.

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59 minutes ago, Pete Mellor said:

Tommy,  from Hosty's 'Assignment Oswald' :- "Since I was in the intelligence unit of the Bureau, Revill and I frequently worked together."

Regarding the get off our patch stuff :- "Still climbing the stairs, Revill snorted, "Well, if you know that Oswald killed Kennedy, why the hell didn't you tell us?  Why didn't you tell us Oswald was in town and was a known Communist?"  "Jack I couldn't tell you.  You know Bureau policy, the need-to-know rule," I said.  I was referring to the Bureau's long-standing policy on espionage cases, that only those who "need to know" particular information are told.  For better or worse, the Bureau did not consider local police part of the need-to-know group.

Cheers Pete,
so that's certainly suggestive there was no cooperation, since Hosty would have undoubtedly been involved if there had been.
I wonder if anyone higher up in DPD might have had the info that a known communist and defector was in town, but just neglected to act on it?
I also wonder if Oswald ever came up as a suspect for the Walker assassination attempt? All the documents I can find on Walker say that it remained "unsolved" (until the WC swept in and kindly cleared it up as it was seemingly busy solving everything else that had little to no conclusive proof) but I imagine it did not go "un-investigated".

I'll have to check out that book,

Edited by Tommy Tomlinson
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1 hour ago, Tommy Tomlinson said:

Cheers Pete,
I also wonder if Oswald ever came up as a suspect for the Walker assassination attempt? All the documents I can find on Walker say that it remained "unsolved" (until the WC swept in and kindly cleared it up as it was seemingly busy solving everything else that had little to no conclusive proof) but I imagine it did not go "un-investigated".

I'll have to check out that book,

There were no suspects for the Walker shooting until Marina's testimony to WC + photographs of Walker's house on Oswald's supposed camera & the note that supposedly fell out of a book at the Paine house.

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1 hour ago, Tommy Tomlinson said:

Cheers Pete,
so that's certainly suggestive there was no cooperation, since Hosty would have undoubtedly been involved if there had been.
I wonder if anyone higher up in DPD might have had the info that a known communist and defector was in town, but just neglected to act on it?
I also wonder if Oswald ever came up as a suspect for the Walker assassination attempt? All the documents I can find on Walker say that it remained "unsolved" (until the WC swept in and kindly cleared it up as it was seemingly busy solving everything else that had little to no conclusive proof) but I imagine it did not go "un-investigated".

I'll have to check out that book,

I agree. Strange how the DPD and other agencies never got anywhere with that investigation regards suspects.

Not to divert the thread because it's focus is important, but as an aside, I always wondered about the De Mohrenschildt's reaction when they visited Marina and Lee in their apartment and saw Lee's rifle for the first time. Jeanne De Mohrenschildt was appalled. George lightly joked about Lee perhaps taking a pot shot at General Walker???

Think I'll post this thought on a more specific thread.

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47 minutes ago, Pete Mellor said:

There were no suspects for the Walker shooting until Marina's testimony to WC + photographs of Walker's house on Oswald's supposed camera & the note that supposedly fell out of a book at the Paine house.

It's kind of unusual that a guy like Walker didn't have a ready made list of enemies he could produce at the drop of a hat. He was no Fred Rogers from what I understand. I had to check that Wikipedia had it right when it said that he'd run for Governor of Texas in the primary on the Democratic ticket but lost out to John Connolly...
(It's almost a shame in a way that Oswald wasn't the shooter... If Oswald HAD been the shooter... had missed Walker at his home as a sitting duck, but then hit Connally and put five holes in him, when aiming at someone else... well... that would be pretty much the most hilariously ironic thing I'd ever heard...) 

I've read about the note and the instructions Lee apparently gave to Marina. Strange that, after escaping justice, he never had the good sense God gave little chickens and destroyed something that could potentially be used against him should the cops have come knocking at his door.

Those photos... were they already developed, or were they on an undeveloped film that was still in the camera?  If they were developed photos how could they tell they were from Oswald's camera? I assume they were developed, otherwise they'd have been a bit useless as evidence that he was surveilling Walker PRIOR to the shooting. Did the camera have a tell tale lens crack or something?

Edited by Tommy Tomlinson
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4 hours ago, Tommy Tomlinson said:

Something just occurred to me, and I'm not sure whether it warrants another thread. I don't think so, since it follows on the path that this discussion has been heading... but can anyone tell me about Hosty and the DPD?

If he was on "Oswald Watch" did he have any contacts or friends in the DPD? 
Was he in an official liaison with DPD? 
Or, maybe, was there any inter agency tension? Sort of "Get off our patch!" stuff?

Anything on this would be greatly appreciated.Sneed's interview with Roy Westphal

Tommy,

You might ask and see if anyone has a copy of Larry Sneed's book, No More Silence.

Ask them if they could copy or scan the paragraph of Sneed's interview with Roy Westphal where Westphal talks about the use of informants and the cooperation or lack thereof between the FBI and the Dallas Police Criminal Intelligence Division.

In essence, what Westphal said was that the FBI had their informants, and the DPD had theirs, and there wasn't much sharing going on.

Steve Thomas

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James Hosty. Part of the Dallas subversive threat intelligence unit of his agency.

Aware of Oswald's background of Russian travels and New Orleans Castro sympathetic public activities... and doesn't consider Oswald with more concern than 99% others on his list which they surely updated prior to JFK's visit.

And where is JFK security minded and responsible Hosty ( he attended the DPD located JFK security briefings the morning of 11,22,1963 ) the moment JFK is shot?

Having lunch in a downtown diner.

Having lunch in a downtown diner ???

He couldn't wait to have his lunch at least until JFK had safely arrived at the Trade Mart?

Hosty knew that the most vulnerable time for JFK's security was while he was being driven in his open topped limo through high building lined downtown Dallas.

 

 

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Just a quick return to the rifle evidence for a moment...

I've read numerous times that the bullet retrieved from the Walker crime scene was discovered to be a 30.06 calibre, but just reading through the WCR, it states it was 6.5mm.

I am no expert on ballistics so have no idea whether this is simply different terminology for the same thing, a mistake in the WCR, a case of confused half truths morphing into "fact" or something else entirely?

Could anyone clear this up for me?

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On 8/6/2020 at 10:34 PM, James DiEugenio said:

It was Liebeler who said that we know Oswald could have done that feat since he did.

...

 

Sorry to drag you back to this Jim,

But I've only just realised that you were talking about the same guy who wrote the memorandum which infamously says that the witness testimony on Oswald's movements after the assassination just as easily put him in Ethiopia.

Just for my ow peace of mind,  do you think he was being sarcastic when he said the whole "We know he could have done it..." thing?

Reading that memo back again is interesting... I'd never really given it much thought, but the further down he gets, the more caustic his language becomes.
He really wasn't impressed with those Chapter IV conclusions...

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Liebeler was of two minds on this case.  One is that he knew there were severe problems with the WR.  And he wanted to do his best to conceal them.  So there were witnesses he wanted to discard, like Markham.

But once it became open season on the WR, he went into all out cover up mode.  It was him and Slawson who really started the idea for the Clark Panel back in 1966. They wanted to do a limited hang out on the medical  evidence to stop an all out inquiry. Then he called that press conference when the Garrison inquiry opened and he used the FBI to say that Ferrie was not really a suspect.  (LOL ROTF)

Around this time, Ray Marcus called him up and said, look why don't you just say that the WC was not an adequate inquiry into the case: instead of saying the glass is half full just say its half empty.   There was a long pause and finally Liebeler said, "Mr. Marcus, sometimes people get involved in things that are bigger than they are."

 

Also, Tommy, the idea that the Walker bullet was a 6.5 WCC projectile is contradicted by both the newspaper and police reports that were originally submitted. The FBI did the alchemy and the WR followed along.  Also, look up the testimony of Kirk Coleman, the best witness.

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