VIDEO: Was the Dallas Police dictabelt altered ?

[Gil Jesus]

The Dallas Police dictabelt recording and transcript from 11/22/63, covering the stretch of time that Dallas Police officer J.D.Tippit was shot dead. Note that the there is an anomaly in the dictabelt at 1:12 pm Dallas time. ( around the 5:00 minute mark in the video ) Was the dictabelt altered ?

 

Can anyone with radio broadcast experience or experience with dictabelts explain what happened here ?

Why it kept repeating over and over something that had been previously said, like an old skipping album record ?

[Gil Jesus]

1 hour ago, Gil Jesus said:

The Dallas Police dictabelt recording and transcript from 11/22/63, covering the stretch of time that Dallas Police officer J.D.Tippit was shot dead. Note that the there is an anomaly in the dictabelt at 1:12 pm Dallas time. ( around the 5:00 minute mark in the video ) Was the dictabelt altered ?

 

Can anyone with radio broadcast experience or experience with dictabelts explain what happened here ?

Why it kept repeating over and over something that had been previously said, like an old skipping album record ?

Another interesting thing about this is the transcripts, especially the FBI's version, which was supposed to transcribe ALL of the transmissions, but like the Dallas Police version, it left out the broadcasts between Capt. Talbert's 10-4 at 1:11 and unit 212's ( Off. Spradlin) call a 1:14.

( I determined Spradlin called at 1:14 by counting backwards from Barnhart's call at 1:15 )

The FBI never mentioned those broadcasts, including the "skipping" anomaly, and instead noted that timeframe as the "end of belt Six".

I find it strange that both the Dallas Police and the FBI saw fit to not transcribe the radio broadcasts between 1:11 and 1:14 pm. Can any of the Warren Commission's supporters explain why this particular timeframe was omitted from the official transcripts ?

Edited October 2, 2023 by Gil Jesus

[Michael Griffith]

1 hour ago, Gil Jesus said:

The Dallas Police dictabelt recording and transcript from 11/22/63, covering the stretch of time that Dallas Police officer J.D.Tippit was shot dead. Note that the there is an anomaly in the dictabelt at 1:12 pm Dallas time. (around the 5:00 minute mark in the video ) Was the dictabelt altered?

 

I'm quoting from my article "Did Oswald Shoot Tippit?":

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Dr. Paul Hoch wrote to Dr. James Barger, one of the HSCA's acoustical scientists, and suggested the dictabelt recording may have been altered. Hoch was skeptical of certain parts of the recording relating to Tippit's presence in Oak Cliff, such as the transmission telling Tippit to be on hand for any "emergency." Hoch discussed this in a 1986 review of Henry Hurt's book Reasonable Doubt:

          I suggested that both the tone and wording of two key messages [that supposedly explain why Tippit was in Oak Cliff] were in the "formal mode" which one would expect only in important messages -- or in a later re-creation. "You are in the Oak Cliff area, are you not?" seemed significantly more formal than "What's your location?", "Are you en route to Parkland, 601?", and similar inquiries recorded that day; it resembles "You do not have the suspect. Is that correct?", where the "formal mode" is expected. Similarly, "You will be at large for any emergency that comes in" contrasts with "Remain in downtown area, available for call" and "Stand by there until we notify you." This kind of analysis has been of evidentiary value in at least one other case, involving a tape (released by Larry Flynt) purportedly of a conversation between John De Lorean and FBI informant James Hoffman. Jack Anderson reported that psycholinguist Murray Miron was able to establish that the tape had been faked.

          (24 May 84, SFC, #1986.2) In addition to the anomalously unresponsive content of "Hoffman's" remarks, his "speech cadences... `are consistent with those to be expected from one who has rehearsed or is reading from a script.'" Anderson described Miron as a "longtime FBI consultant." The Justice Department should certainly sponsor that kind of analysis of the Tippit messages. . . . (Echoes of Conspiracy, Vol. 8, No. 1, February 28, 1986)

Dr. Hoch sent his analysis to Professor Miron, in light of Miron's work on the Flynt tape.
Several months later, Dr. Hoch wrote the following:

          One reason for questioning the authenticity of the DPD Dictabelt is the presence of certain messages relating to Officer Tippit. Basically, the following exchanges are suspect because of their content, the formal tone of transmissions 590 and 592, and the apparent absence of the expected reaction. The message numbers and the transcriptions are from the Kimbrough transcript.

389. [Disp.] 87, 78, move into central Oak Cliff Area.
390. [78 (Tippit)] 78, I'm about Kiest and Bonnie View.
391. [87 (Nelson)] 87's going north on Marsalis on R. L. Thornton.
392. [Disp.] 10-4....
588-589 [Disp.] 78. [78] 78.
590. [Disp.] You are in the Oak Cliff area, are you not?
591. [78] Lancaster and Eighth.
592. [Disp.] You will be at large for any emergency that comes in.
583. [78] 10-4.

          I sent my analysis to Prof. Murray Miron, a psycholinguist whose work on another case was described in Echoes of Conspiracy, Vol. 8, No. 1, February 28, 1986. The following is from a letter I sent to the Justice Department on September 16, 1986, describing his independent analysis, which provided some support for my
own work:

          "Prof. Miron . . . has not yet prepared a formal report, but he has provided me with the following conclusions:

          'Our preliminary findings... suggest that the communications directed to Officer Tippit are anomalously at variance with the other transmissions of the tape record.... The transmissions to Tippit are quite stilted. They have the appearance of transmissions made more for an audience's benefit than those for which the intent is to convey instructions. The query regarding Tippit's current position is rhetorical rather than questioning.'" (Echoes of Conspiracy, Vol. 8, No. 3, October 31, 1986) ("Did Oswald Shoot Tippit?", pp. 23-25)

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Edited October 2, 2023 by Michael Griffith

[Tom Gram]

6 hours ago, Gil Jesus said:

Why it kept repeating over and over something that had been previously said, like an old skipping album record ?

I’m glad you brought this up. I noticed it too for the first time a couple weeks ago while listening to the tape. It’s definitely weird - but I figured it was just a result of the tape flipping/transfer/copying process, or something like that. 

Has this looping business been mentioned by the WC, HSCA, or even Dale Myers, etc.? 

[Jonathan Cohen]

The various oddities found on the tape are covered in great detail in Josiah Thompson’s “Last Second in Dallas.”

[Tom Gram]

2 hours ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

The various oddities found on the tape are covered in great detail in Josiah Thompson’s “Last Second in Dallas.”

Thanks Jonathan. I have the book but don’t recall any discussion of the looping thing - but I haven’t read it since it came out so probably just forgot. 

[Michael Crane]

Everywhere you turn around,something had to be altered,stolen,mishandled,withheld,replaced,omitted,falsified,added or even killed.

The cover-up team had to be shitting their pants with all of the stuff they ended up having to do to.

Edited October 3, 2023 by Michael Crane

[Gil Jesus]

7 hours ago, Michael Crane said:

Everywhere you turn around,something had to be altered,stolen,mishandled,withheld,replaced,omitted,falsified,added or even killed.

The cover-up team had to be shitting their pants with all of the stuff they ended up having to do to.

I'm sure it's just a coincidence that the dictabelt screwed up during the timeframe which J.D. Tippit was being killed.

I'm also sure that it's just a coincidence that the Bowley broadcast is 39.83 seconds long and the anomaly just happens to be long enough to cover it at 48.13 seconds. I timed both on my Movie Maker.

But they're just coincidences, I'm sure.

Edited October 3, 2023 by Gil Jesus

[Chris Scally]

Gil,

Two observations, if I may -

First, despite what they said, the FBI transcripts were not verbatim by any means. Possibly the nearest to a verbatim transcript you will find is in Larry Sabato's "The Kennedy Half Century" app (working from memory here, but I think that is what it was called); and

Second, the source of your recording is crucial. There are many, many copies of the recordings in circulation, and many of those are of poor quality. Again, going from memory, the best quality recordings of both channels have been made available by Michael O'Dell, and posted on this forum (iirc).

Hope this helps.

 

[Mark Ulrik]

I almost posted this yesterday: The Dallas Police Department’s Channel 1 Radio Dictabelts: The Chain of Possession by Chris Scally (2004).

[David G. Healy]

On 10/2/2023 at 6:55 PM, Michael Crane said:

Everywhere you turn around,something had to be altered,stolen,mishandled,withheld,replaced,omitted,falsified,added or even killed.

The cover-up team had to be shitting their pants with all of the stuff they ended up having to do to.

yes indeed, murder is a very messy business, especially if finger(s) of guilt are titling towards an area of conservative, corporate bent... my-oh-my!

[James DiEugenio]

Chris is very familiar with this aspect.

I agree with him, the O'Dell version is likely the best.

[Gil Jesus]

On 10/3/2023 at 8:23 AM, Chris Scally said:

Gil,

Two observations, if I may -

First, despite what they said, the FBI transcripts were not verbatim by any means. Possibly the nearest to a verbatim transcript you will find is in Larry Sabato's "The Kennedy Half Century" app (working from memory here, but I think that is what it was called); and

Second, the source of your recording is crucial. There are many, many copies of the recordings in circulation, and many of those are of poor quality. Again, going from memory, the best quality recordings of both channels have been made available by Michael O'Dell, and posted on this forum (iirc).

Hope this helps.

 

Thanks for that info. I couldn't find it in a search of this forum but I'll search the web and hope I find it somewhere else.

Thanks again.