The Knoll Plainclothes Detective

[Benjamin Cole]

11 hours ago, Steve Thomas said:

Gerry,

I once wrote an essay on this very subject that you can read here, if you are interested:

Secret Service: On the Knoll and Beyond

© by Steve Thomas

January 21, 2008

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/12084-secret-service-on-the-knoll-and-beyond/

https://myjfksite.weebly.com/

The incidents of Dallas Policemen and Deputy Sheriffs encountering someone whom they identified, or were identified to them as being members of the U.S. Secret Service at a time and place where no members of the Secret Service are known to be present,  is more extensive than is commonly known. There are at least twelve accounts (if you count the identification of Jack Puterbaugh as a Secret Service agent in the pilot car by Detectives Senkel and Turner), and eighteen if you count the six policemen who say there was a Secret Service Agent present during Oswald’s first interrogation beginning at 2:20PM."

"

"Were these agents imposters?

I believe that some were and some were not. I think that the agent on the sixth floor of the TSBD is genuine; the agent on the knoll is not. The agent needing a ride from the airport at 12:38 is probably genuine; the agents encountered at the library probably were not. The agents encountered at the back of the TSBD by David Harkness were probably imposters; the agent in the Dallas Police Headquarters was probably genuine. In either case, the implications are disturbing. It would be evidence of conspiracy if bogus agents were impersonating U.S. Secret Service officials that day; and if there were real Secret Service Agents in and around Dealey Plaza and this fact has been withheld from the American people for close to 40 years, then we have not been told the truth about what really happened one sunny November afternoon in Dallas, TX. in 1963."

Steve Thomas

Excellent work, Steve Thomas. 

[Benjamin Cole]

11 hours ago, Ron Ege said:

Excerpted from:  FAKE SECRET SERVICE AGENTS (whokilledjfk.net).

Thank you, Michael T. Griffith.

 

" . . . Explained Officer Smith:

He looked like an auto mechanic. He had on a sports shirt and sports pants. But he had dirty fingernails, it looked like, and hands that looked like an auto mechanic's hands. And afterwards it didn't ring true for the Secret Service. At the time we were so pressed for time, and we were searching. And he had produced correct identification, and we just overlooked the thing. I should have checked that man closer, but at the time I didn't snap on it. (Summers 50)

Former Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry stated in 1977 that the man encountered by Officer Smith "must have been bogus." Said Curry,

"I think he must have been bogus--certainly the suspicion would point to the man as being involved, some way or other, in the shooting since he was in an area immediately adjacent to where the shots were--and the fact that he had a badge that purported him to be Secret Service would make it seem all the more suspicious." (Summers 51) . . ."

 

And:

 

" . . .Often overlooked in discussions on phony SS agents in Dealey Plaza is the disturbing account of Sergeant D. V. Harkness, (Posner, for example, does not even mention it.). Sergeant Harkness went to the REAR of the Texas School Book Depository Building within a few minutes of the assassination. When he arrived there, he encountered several "well-armed" men dressed in suits. These "well-armed" men TOLD Harkness they were SS agents (Hurt 110-111). It's not hard to understand why the presence of the armed, well-dressed men at the rear of the Book Depository did not make Harkness suspicious. Police officers were beginning to seal off the area, and just six minutes after the shooting Harkness himself identified the Depository over the radio as a possible source of gunfire. The problem, of course, is that the men encountered by Harkness could not have been legitimate SS agents, nor is it credible to suggest that Harkness somehow "misunderstood" what they said to him. . . ."

That is a remarkable account by Harkness. 

From the WC:

Mr. BELIN. Then you went around to the back of the building?

Mr. HARKNEBS. Yes, sir.

Mr. BELIN. Was anyone around in the back when you got there?

Mr. HARKNESS. There were some Secret Service agents there. I didn’t get them identified. They told me they were Secret Service.

Mr. BELIN. Then did you stay around the back of the building?

Mr. HARKNESS. Yes; I stayed at the back until the squad got there.

Mr. BELIN. Then what did you do?

Mr. HARKNESS. I went back to the front....

---30---

As usual, the WC showed oceanic apathy regarding a uniformed DPD officer stating he had met Secret Secret officers behind the TSBD within minutes of the JFKA....

[Gerry Down]

6 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

That is a remarkable account by Harkness. 

From the WC:

Mr. BELIN. Then you went around to the back of the building?

Mr. HARKNEBS. Yes, sir.

Mr. BELIN. Was anyone around in the back when you got there?

Mr. HARKNESS. There were some Secret Service agents there. I didn’t get them identified. They told me they were Secret Service.

Mr. BELIN. Then did you stay around the back of the building?

Mr. HARKNESS. Yes; I stayed at the back until the squad got there.

Mr. BELIN. Then what did you do?

Mr. HARKNESS. I went back to the front....

---30---

As usual, the WC showed oceanic apathy regarding a uniformed DPD officer stating he had met Secret Secret officers behind the TSBD within minutes of the JFKA....

Seems like off duty secret service agents made their way to the scene of the crime when they heard radio reports of a shooting at the motorcade in Dealey Plaza.

https://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/27/nyregion/60-firefighters-who-died-on-sept-11-were-off-duty.html?smid=url-share

Edited November 17, 2022 by Gerry Down

[Benjamin Cole]

1 hour ago, Gerry Down said:

Seems like off duty secret service agents made their way to the scene of the crime when they heard radio reports of a shooting at the motorcade in Dealey Plaza.

https://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/27/nyregion/60-firefighters-who-died-on-sept-11-were-off-duty.html?smid=url-share

You do not consider the "Secret Service agents" at the TSBD may have simply been imposters? 

[Gerry Down]

46 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

You do not consider the "Secret Service agents" at the TSBD may have simply been imposters? 

I think we should always favor a simple explanation over a complicated one. There were 200,000 people lining the streets. Some of them were bound to be off duty secret service agents. It would be their job, on hearing of an incident in Dealey Plaza, to head straight there to see if any help was needed. And make their way to the back of the tsbd to see if anyone might come out, though by then LHO had long since left the building.

[Paul Cummings]

9 minutes ago, Gerry Down said:

I think we should always favor a simple explanation over a complicated one. There were 200,000 people lining the streets. Some of them were bound to be off duty secret service agents. It would be their job, on hearing of an incident in Dealey Plaza, to head straight there to see if any help was needed. And make their way to the back of the tsbd to see if anyone might come out, though by then LHO had long since left the building.

Why were they bound to be off duty? I don't recall anyone coming forward and saying they were off duty that day. 

[Benjamin Cole]

8 minutes ago, Gerry Down said:

I think we should always favor a simple explanation over a complicated one. There were 200,000 people lining the streets. Some of them were bound to be off duty secret service agents. It would be their job, on hearing of an incident in Dealey Plaza, to head straight there to see if any help was needed. And make their way to the back of the tsbd to see if anyone might come out, though by then LHO had long since left the building.

Yes...but are there any reports of off-duty SS agents showing up on 11/22?

Why would any SS agents in Dallas be off-duty on that day? I know there was a SS office in Chicago, but I never heard of one in Dallas. 

I have read a lot of WC testimonies, and no one says, "I was an off-duty SS agent that day but converged on the TSBD after hearing gunshots...." 

There was some sort of Army intel guy around with a camera, but his story is more-or-less known. 

[Gerry Down]

4 minutes ago, Paul Cummings said:

Why were they bound to be off duty? I don't recall anyone coming forward and saying they were off duty that day. 

Of course not. When they realized they were not needed in Dealey Plaza they headed off home. They were not witnesses to the shooting itself so had no business going to the Warren Commission.

[Gerry Down]

5 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

There was some sort of Army intel guy around with a camera, but his story is more-or-less known. 

That's one. Then there was the plainclothes guy on the triple underpass which Sam Holland saw and apparently Malcolm Summers saw. He never told his story either.

I thought there was an SS office in Dallas - wasn't forest sorrels the head of it?

[Paul Cummings]

16 minutes ago, Gerry Down said:

Of course not. When they realized they were not needed in Dealey Plaza they headed off home. They were not witnesses to the shooting itself so had no business going to the Warren Commission.

How would they know they weren't needed in Dealey Plaza? I don't know why you just assume SSA where off duty and then just decided they wouldn't need to report this to superiors or proper authorities.

Edited November 17, 2022 by Paul Cummings

[Gerry Down]

1 hour ago, Paul Cummings said:

How would they know they weren't needed in Dealey Plaza? I don't know why you just assume SSA where off duty and then just decided they wouldn't need to report this to superiors or proper authorities.

The police were swarming the area at that stage. They had it covered. There would be no need to report anything cos they didn't do anything. Oswald had long since left the building.

[Paul Cummings]

16 minutes ago, Gerry Down said:

The police were swarming the area at that stage. They had it covered. There would be no need to report anything cos they didn't do anything. Oswald had long since left the building.

How would they know the police were swarming the area? There's no evidence of what you're suggesting especially given how all SSA were accounted for that day.  So they decided not to pursue because Oswald he had left? So they knew by then Oswald was the suspect? 

Edited November 17, 2022 by Paul Cummings

[Gerry Down]

6 minutes ago, Paul Cummings said:

How would they know the police were swarming the area? There's no evidence of what you're suggesting especially given how all SSA were accounted for that day.

All SSA on duty were accounted for. 

[Paul Cummings]

7 minutes ago, Gerry Down said:

All SSA on duty were accounted for. 

All SSA were accounted for that day in Dallas.

[Ron Ege]

16 hours ago, Gerry Down said:

 

The above sketch done to the description given by Malcolm Summers does not match the description given by Officer Smith to Anthony Summers.

We must be talking about two different men in this regard? Malcolm Summers most likely met the well-dressed plainclothes detective with a gun that had been on the triple underpass with Officers Foster and White while Officer Smith met a completely different man, more casually dressed with dirty fingernails, identifying himself as Secret Service but with no gun. 

Gerry, thanks.

I would gather.  But who knows?