How "Braden"/Florer got on the police airwaves

[Donald Willis]

How "Braden"/Florer got on the police airwaves

It all started with Insp. Sawyer, Sgt. Gerald Hill, Patrolman James Valentine, and Officer Ira Trantham, at the front of the TSBD.  "Jerry Hill and [Trantham] went inside.  Hill continued upstairs and an officer approached him with a prisoner.  Advised this subject had been observed 'acting suspiciously' on the third floor without a reasonable explanation for being up there... At the front doorway, Sawyer was apprised of this development" and had Trantham take the suspect to the sheriff's.--Trantham's HSCA interview.

"Shortly after, a DPD officer brought a boy in a sport coat up and said, 'Here is the man that had done the shooting'... Insp. Sawyer was informed of this..."--Chief Criminal Deputy Allan Sweatt, Investigation Report 11/23/63.  

Quite a jump--from "acting suspiciously" to "the man that had done the shooting".  Why was the "prisoner" thought to be the man who shot Kennedy?  The man, as far as we know, had no weapon or bullets on him.  Did he try to run?  Did he confess?  The "Braden"/Florer end of this puzzle will remain a puzzle.  But, at the other end...

The Trantham interview corrects Sgt. Hill, who testified he went into the building with Sawyer.  The latter apparently went in a little later.  How do I know that he didn't go in earlier?  Because, at 1pm, DPD Captain Talbert radios, "I think that 5 and 9 (Lumpkin & Sawyer) both are still in the building." (CE 1974 p43)  By 1:08, Sawyer seems to be out front again--Sgt. Harkness radios that information & persons should be brought to Sawyer.  (CE 1974 p50)  And at 1:12, Sawyer radios that hulls were found on the "3rd floor".  

The Braden/Florer puzzle helps clear up the 1:12 puzzle.  Sawyer has heard that a man has been arrested, on the 3rd floor, for shooting.  About 1:10, Sgt. Hill brings Sawyer up-to-date.  He says that shells and scraps of chicken have been found.  Whether or not Hill indicated the number of a floor for this find, we don't know.  But Sawyer ties Hill's information to the earlier 3rd-floor information and radios that the shells were found on the "3rd floor".  The old mystery solved...

But there was a secondary mystery.  Sawyer told reporters that day that shells and remains of fried chicken were found on the *fifth* floor.  Where did he get *that*?  Educated guess:  Chief Deputy Sheriff Allan Sweatt reported that weekend that fellow deputy Luke Mooney yelled out the "5th floor window" that "spent cartridge cases" had been found there.  Sawyer was apparently inside when Mooney cried out and did not hear him.  But I think that Sweatt must have heard Sawyer's broadcast and went over to tell him about the "fifth floor window".  Hence, the adjusted story told to reporters... Another mystery solved?
 

[Donald Willis]

I should note that these mystery solutions play hob with my old argument that Sawyer's "3rd floor" meant 3rd-floor down, or 5th floor.  That was one of my arguments for a 5th-floor shooting site.  But, no, it means "3rd floor", and it was misinformation to begin with.  Fooey.   Still, I continue to maintain that the 5th floor was the unofficial "nest".   For two reasons:  Brennan, Fischer, Edwards, and Jackson all testified that the shooter's window was wide open--thank you, David Belin, for pursuing this; no thanks for not liking the inevitable conclusion.  (There have been rather feeble LN arguments against the validity of this four-way corroboration.)  And LL Hill's "second window" transmission was doubly covered up:  The witness who pointed it out was "lost", and the ID of the patrolman who reported it was obfuscated by attributing it to the wrong cop, Haygood, by both Haygood himself (who maintained he knew nothing about the "lost" witness) and by transcriber Sgt. Henslee.  Subsequent, more-honest transcriptions by the DPD & the FBI restored the transmission to Hill, but too late to recall the dishonest witnesses.  (LBJ was in much too much of a  hurry.)  However, as I'm fond of noting, the Warren Report agreed with the restoration to Hill!    Oh--and I believe that the supposedly "lost" witness was Robert (wide open) Jackson.

And the only wide-open, 2nd-window from the SE end was on the 5th floor.  Yes, that was B.R. Williams' window, and note that he was asked at the hearings if a man named Brennan ID'd him coming out of the building.  He of course denied all--Brennan was supposed to have seen Norman & Jarman, not him.  Also note that Brennan told reporters that the gunman was "nice looking".  That fits Williams somewhat more than it does Oswald.  Yes, that "second window" was a mistake--Williams was not the shooter--but the Commission, or rather the DPD, did not allow "mistakes", that is, anything which took the focus off Oswald or the 6th-floor "nest".  As also, see the treatment of the other early suspect, the suspicious man on the 3rd floor!  Or was that a mistake?