DPD Dispatcher Alterations and Tippit Murder

[Michael Kalin]

HSCA sleuths sometimes asked pertinent questions but seldom ascertained valid answers. The Mentzel interview is a prime example.

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Sgt. Mentzell (sic) was interviewed in Dallas at 2:50P.M. on 10/24/77. He hes been with the Dallas Police Department for 20 years. Mentzell was tho solo operator of a patrol car in Sector 91 (central Oak Cliff) on Nov. 22, 1963. We were curious, after listening to the tapes of Channel One with Murray Jackson, as to what Mentzell was doing in the critical period when Officer Tippet (sic) was called in by the dispatcher to cover central Oak Cliff.
 

The radio tapes (using the Kimbrough/Shearer transcript) show three "clear" messages from Menzel (91) between 12:22 & 12:33. Only the first was acknowledged. Following the third he went silent until 1:07 when again he announced that he was clear. This time the dispatcher replied with "91 clear." So what was he doing in the meantime?

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Mentzell said that he checked out on a Signal 5 (meal) and was at Luby's Restaurant at the time the President was shot. He had his tray, but had not yet eaten when someone behind the counter told him that the President had been shot in downtown Dallas. He left his tray of food untouched and returned to his car. Mentzell told us that he reasoned at the time that if an assassin were fleeing downtown Dallas at the time they just might come his way. The description was not yet broadcast. but he looked for anyone or anything "unusual." While cruising west 10th and Zangs, the dispatcher told him (91) to handle an accident at Tyler and Davis (see Radio Log Transcript #830) just before 1 PM. Mentzell said he went to 817 West Davis and found that it was a minor "fender-bender" type of an auto accident. He clears at about 1:16 PM. At 1:16 PM Tippit (78) is shot and killed at the 4OO block of W. [sic] 10th (and Patton), but it is not until minutes later that a citizen using the police radio in Tippit's car alerts the dispatcher and presumably Mentzell who is 17 blocks away. When he arrives at the scene, Tippit's body has been removed to Methodist Hospital and other police are on the scene. Mentzell never knew that Tippit was in sector 91 until after he was killed. He did not go to Texas Theatre when Oswald was apprehended. He later went to the funeral hone and became part of Tippit's honor guard.

If the HSCA investigator had bothered to familiarize himself with the radio tapes he would have realized how doubtful this account was, or at least asked why Mentzel did not hear any of the exchanges between Jackson & Tippit during the 12:45-12:55 time span. They firmly establish "that Tippit was in sector 91" before he was killed. The upshot is that Mentzel did not commence "cruising west 10th and Zangs" until 1PM or so.

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389.    DIS:    87, 78, move into central Oak Cliff area.
390.    78:     I'm about Kiest and Bonnie View.
588.    DIS:    78.
589.    78:     78.
590.    DIS:    You are in the Oak Cliff area, are you not?
591.    78:     Lancaster and Eighth.
592.    DIS:    You will be at large for any emergency that comes in.
593.    78:     10-4.

While laying up at Luby's Mentzel made a phone call around the same time as Tippit's Top Ten phone call. Both called their respective contacts at DPD (possibly the same person). Mentzel was told to cruise "west 10th and Zangs," and Tippit was sent directly to his demise. Jackson's "fender-bender" dispatch occurred about ten minutes after Tippit's Top Ten phone call. Jackson also dispatched 222 to handle this minor accident, and a lively conversation ensued over his whereabouts.

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759.    91:     91, clear.
760.    DIS:    91 clear. 1:07
830.    DIS:    Signal 7, 817 West Davis. 1:11. (Accident)
831.    91:     817 West Davis?
832.    DIS:    222.
833.    222:    En route.
834.    91:     7 on West Davis.
836.    91:     Code 5.
[1:12]
850.    91:(?)  Did you receive 222 was en route to West Davis?
[1:15]
859.    DIS:    91.
860.    91:     222 en route?
861.    DIS:    Yes.
862.    91:     What's his location?
863.    DIS:    Location?
863a.   222:    Sylvan and Colorado.
864.    DIS:    Location?
865.    222:    Colorado and Sylvan.
866.    DIS:    Sylvan and Colorado, 91.

Having resolved 222's amusing "Sylvan and Colorado" and "Colorado and Sylvan" inversion, Jackson was seconds away from receiving Bowley's citizen call. All this came long after the phone call that had sent Tippit to East 10th Street, even after Tippit's death, too late for the accident to have been a factor in diverting Mentzel from tracking down Oswald. He may have modified the accident into an earlier event with himself as participant for Marie Tippit's sake, that she would not suspect the awful truth that her husband had been set up and intentionally ambushed.

Edited February 22 by Michael Kalin

[Michael Kalin]

Relating this to the thread's theme, in this case a matter of omission, none of Sawyer A, Sawyer B, CE705 & CE1974 reports any of the radio communications involving 91 during this time span (12:22-1:15), not even the 1:11 Signal 7 dispatch. As to Mentzel's claim "that he checked out on a Signal 5 (meal)," it's missing from everything including Kimbrough/Shearer.

What did HSCA Interviewer James P. Kelly make of all this? Probably reacted by issuing an immediate Signal 5 for himself.

[Jim Hargrove]

Thank you for this deep analysis, Michael.  It goes far beyond anything I have studied so far (or at least can remember).

What's your best estimate for the time of Tippit's Top 10 call?  (John A. puts it right about 1 pm.)

 

[Michael Kalin]

You're welcome, Jim. I think John A. got the time right at about 1PM.

Top Ten's Louis Cortinas told Earl Golz, "Tippit sped away in his squad car across Jefferson, down Bishop, to Sunset, where he ran a stop sign and turned right down Sunset." The distance from Top Ten to 404 E. 10th is .8 mile, readily traversed within a reasonable interval between the 1PM phone call and the 1:06PM murder.

The James Andrews encounter is slightly inconsistent as described by Bill Drenas' "Car 10 Where Are You?", occurring after the phone call in this version. Drenas cites Greg Lowrey's time estimate, transmitted via Bill Pulte, of "a little after 1PM," with an improbable, more complicated route.

Joseph McBride's Into the Nighmare [pp. 448-455] has an extensive discussion of the Andrews encounter, one of the book's many highlights. He interviewed the same Greg Lowrey, who "told [McBride] that Tippit went to the record store after the encounter with Andrews," which "[Lowrey] said occurred shortly before the Tippit shooting, probably shortly before 1 p.m."

And Bob's your uncle!

Edited January 21 by Michael Kalin

[Michael Kalin]

While Mentzel cruised W. 10th & Zangs as instructed by his contact, Tippit drove into an ambush prepared for him at E. 10th, also as instructed by his contact, a location where he was seen "every day." This facilitated the arrangement and was probably the reason for his undoing. It was also more convenient to Olsen, but that's another story.

Farther east William Lawrence (Red) Smith's crew of bricklayers were working at 500 E. 10th when someone who looked like Oswald walked past the construction site heading west on E. 10th. The FBI interviewed four of the five bricklayers, with Red Smith's the most interesting. He did not hear the shots because he had left for lunch at Town & Country Cafe, 604 E. 10th, a distance of 600+ feet, passing the man who resembled Oswald en route. The distance from 500 E. 10th to the murder site is 360 feet. It's not specified exactly where the pedestrians passed each other but Red had likely entered the cafe before the shooting occurred.

The shots caused the bricklayers to interrupt their work, and assemble in front. Chapman had been in back with Holmes, and Austin in front upon a scaffold. Kinneth's location is unknown. Chapman then fetched Red from the cafe and they returned while the ambulance was still at the scene. This was the ambulance summoned as a result of Mary Wright's call.

The dispatcher gave Mary Wright's address, 501 E. 10th, to ambulance 602 at 1:19, still refraining from broadcasting the correct address supplied by Bowley at 1:16. No harm in this instance because the ambulance's route took it directly to the murder scene at 404 E. 10th.

But it means that Mary Wright grossly exaggerated the rapidity of events.

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I heard three shots. From my window, I got a clear view of a man lying there on the street. He was there in the next block. I could see there was a man lying in the street. I didn't wait a minute. I ran to the telephone. I didn't look in the book or anything. I ran to the telephone, picked it up and dialed 'O.' I said, 'Call the police, a man's been shot!' After that I went outside to join my husband. It wasn't but a minute till the ambulance got there.

The interval of time between the shots and Red Smith's return to 500 E. 10th was much greater than two minutes. It may not be easy to estimate primarily because it's unknown if Chapman walked or drove to the cafe, but anything less than 10 or 15 minutes defies belief. Chapman was slow to respond to the shots that rang out while he was "laying brick at the rear of the building on which he was working," thinking they were "a noise...made by an individual who was building a garage across the street from where he was working." Probably at least two minutes elapsed before he even made up his mind to interrupt the boss' lunch.

Hard to imagine Mary was suborned but not Frank. Conclusion is the Nashes were bamboozled, an interesting example of insinuating a pair of red herrings that waited on gullible private researchers for discovery, and they fell for it hook, line & sinker.

Estimating lapsed times is vexing. The radio timestamps are not reliable because it is unknown when DPD's clocks had been synchronized with a valid time source, and CE1974 says they were not synchronized with each other. There is no basis for rejecting Bowley's arrival time of 1:10, but even less reason to declare a synchronicity with any of DPD's clocks. A lapse of six minutes between his arrival and citizen call seems a bit long, but the data lacks precision and defies analysis. Not much exists in the way of recourse except to piece together the succession of events according to what is known however difficult that may be to ascertain.

Edited January 28 by Michael Kalin