Crowd on the other side of the Triple Under Pass

[Jamey Flanagan]

I'm just curious as to whether any witnesses were ever interviewed who were on the other side of the triple under pass and what they might have heard.

I think it was the Jack Daniels film that was shot from there and you see at least a small crowd gathered and they are all still waving and apparently unaware that anything out of the ordinary had happened.

Which got me curious as to whether any of that crowd were ever interviewed and if they had heard any shots or sounds. 

[Joseph McBride]

I interviewed Jack Daniels about his film while he was standing on that

site. I asked him why the limousine is just a blur when it goes past, and the camera

basically loses the occupants. He told me he was not looking through the

camera but holding it at chest height and panning it with his body

as it passed him and his sons, who are the boys seen

waving as the car approaches, seemingly oblvious

to what had happened in Dealey Plaza.

Edited May 30 by Joseph McBride

[Jamey Flanagan]

12 minutes ago, Joseph McBride said:

I interviewed Jack Daniels about his film while he was standing on that

site. I asked him why the limousine is just a blur when it goes past, and the camera

basically loses the occupants. He told me he was not looking through the

camera but holding it at chest height and panning it with his body

as it passed him and his sons, who are the boys seen

waving as the car approaches, seemingly oblvious

to what had happened in Dealey Plaza.

Thank you!

I know everyone always tried to describe Dealey Plaza as this "chamber of sound" and usually ascribe the acoustics there as to why witnesses thought shots came from the Grassy Knoll instead of the TSBD, but I find it hard to believe that you wouldn't hear the shots no matter how faint or the screams of the crowd turn from exhilaration to horror.

Those two types of screams are totally different. I remember someone describing the scene just after the assassination as something akin to a chorus of horrifying screams or something to that effect.

Edited May 30 by Jamey Flanagan
Autocorrect

[Chris Bristow]

1 hour ago, Jamey Flanagan said:

Thank you!

I know everyone always tried to describe Dealey Plaza as this "chamber of sound" and usually ascribe the acoustics there as to why witnesses thought shots came from the Grassy Knoll instead of the TSBD, but I find it hard to believe that you wouldn't hear the shots no matter how faint or the screams of the crowd turn from exhilaration to horror.

Those two types of screams are totally different. I remember someone describing the scene just after the assassination as something akin to a chorus of horrifying screams or something to that effect.

Unless there was a lot of freeway noise I can't see how they would miss shots from the TSBD. The knoll was not in a direct line of sight to Daniels but the 6th floor was , and was at a distance of 900 ft. Noisy crowds cheering may obscure the sound of shots but I doubt anyone near Daniels was cheering during the shot sequence when the Limo was still in the plaza.
 The echo explanation never made much sense to me. If echos fooled people that day they would have reported closer to 6 shots. If echos were the reason for the reported last shots being close together, why did they not report the earlier shots as close together? Some, like Kinney and DPD J. Smith, did report echos but they recognized Them as such.

[Ron Bulman]

Ed Hoffman was a witness from the other side of the tracks.  Granted he wasn't on the curb when the limo passed as he had climbed up the hill to look over the tracks into Dealy Plaza.  Being deaf and mute he wouldn't have heard the shots.  He only knew something was wrong for sure when he saw the limo come out from under the overpass and saw JFK laying down in Jackie's lap with blood all around.  He tried to make himself understood to a policeman on the overpass using hand gestures but was waved off.  He later explained to others through sign language he had seen a man in a suit with a rifle run behind the fence to it's end and tossed the rifle to a railroad worker who disassembled it and put it in a soft leather bag and took off north through the rail yards while the other man went back toward the knoll walking normally.

Some have discounted his story, he later said both men took off north.  Jim Marrs seemed to think his story credible in Crossfire.

[Ben Green]

15 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

Ed Hoffman was a witness from the other side of the tracks.  Granted he wasn't on the curb when the limo passed as he had climbed up the hill to look over the tracks into Dealy Plaza.  Being deaf and mute he wouldn't have heard the shots.  He only knew something was wrong for sure when he saw the limo come out from under the overpass and saw JFK laying down in Jackie's lap with blood all around.  He tried to make himself understood to a policeman on the overpass using hand gestures but was waved off.  He later explained to others through sign language he had seen a man in a suit with a rifle run behind the fence to it's end and tossed the rifle to a railroad worker who disassembled it and put it in a soft leather bag and took off north through the rail yards while the other man went back toward the knoll walking normally.

Some have discounted his story, he later said both men took off north.  Jim Marrs seemed to think his story credible in Crossfire.

To my knowledge, there is no evidence or corroboration that Ed Hoffman was where he said he was at the time of the assassination nor did any other witnesses describe seeing exactly what he saw (although JC Price claimed to see a man running north through the rail yard behind the picket fence immediately after the shooting).

The other main problem with Hoffman's account is that he didn't come forward with his version of events until some time after the assassination.

Obviously none of this means what he said isn't true but I just think when you take the above into consideration it makes a less credible witness than some others, which is probably why many have discounted his story.

 

[Dan Katzenberger]

http://I always wondered if there was another shooter in this area or on the way to the hospital in case the first shooters didn’t kill him.

[Kevin Balch]

On 5/30/2024 at 2:44 PM, Chris Bristow said:

Unless there was a lot of freeway noise I can't see how they would miss shots from the TSBD. The knoll was not in a direct line of sight to Daniels but the 6th floor was , and was at a distance of 900 ft. Noisy crowds cheering may obscure the sound of shots but I doubt anyone near Daniels was cheering during the shot sequence when the Limo was still in the plaza.
 The echo explanation never made much sense to me. If echos fooled people that day they would have reported closer to 6 shots. If echos were the reason for the reported last shots being close together, why did they not report the earlier shots as close together? Some, like Kinney and DPD J. Smith, did report echos but they recognized Them as such.

Wasn’t Stemmons Freeway traffic held up during the motorcade, along with railroad traffic? Someone on the other side should have heard shots even though they were almost directly upwind from the source.

Dan Rather claimed he was on the other side of the railroad overpass to catch any film from the CBS cameraman in the motorcade to bring it back to KLRD for development. He claims he didn’t hear the shots but sensed something was wrong when the limo sped by him so he walked over to Dealey Plaza, saw the crowd was obviously distraught and instead of doing the obvious and asking someone what happened, went directly to KLRD. For what it’s worth as there is no photographic evidence to corroborate his claim.

A rifle shot will make sound from the muzzle discharge and the sonic boom of the bullet, assuming it is supersonic which the MC ammunition was. The cone of the sonic boom will reach people at times quite differently than the muzzle blast which could be perceived as echoes.

[Ron Bulman]

13 hours ago, Ben Green said:

To my knowledge, there is no evidence or corroboration that Ed Hoffman was where he said he was at the time of the assassination nor did any other witnesses describe seeing exactly what he saw (although JC Price claimed to see a man running north through the rail yard behind the picket fence immediately after the shooting).

The other main problem with Hoffman's account is that he didn't come forward with his version of events until some time after the assassination.

Obviously none of this means what he said isn't true but I just think when you take the above into consideration it makes a less credible witness than some others, which is probably why many have discounted his story.

 

Jim Marrs is a hero of mine.  Also, from the Fort Worth/Dallas area, a FW Star Telegram reporter in 1963.  Crossfire was revolutionary for me.  I'd never heard of him then.  He taught a course on the JFKA at the University of Texas at Arlington for many years, where I matriculated at.

He is the only one to my knowledge to interview and research Ed Hoffman properly or look into his claims sincerely.  So here are maybe wasted keystrokes in history summarizing his five pages in Crossfire on Ed.

Finally in the summer of 1985, he told his story to this author.  It was later substantially confirmed by FBI documents. 

Ed walked along Stemmons after parking his car to its overpass of Elm Street hoping to see into Dealy Plaza.  He was even with the 1st floor of the TSBD, 200 yards away.  . . . on the north side of the fence he saw a man running in a suit and tie with a rifle in his hands who at the end of the fence tossed it to a railroad worker who knelt down beside a RR switch box, disassembled it.  Put it in a bag and took off north through the RR yards.  The other guy ran partway down the fence then slowed.

Kennedy's car came into sight out of the west side of the triple underpass, Ed saw JFK in the blood-spattered car and knew something was wrong.  He went waving to a policeman on the RR overpass who waved him off as he could say nothing.  He went to the FBI office, only a secretary there, left his name, address (never heard anything from them).  Went home to mom and dad, also deaf/mute, dad, don't get involved.  On Thanksgiving told DPD officer uncle Robert Hoffman what he'd seen.  

"Eddie's a very bright person and always has been, and I can't think of any reason he would make up something like this.  His father was very, verry concerned he knew anything about it . . . was concerned about him getting involved in any way."

Ed read about the official version of Oswald alone from behind and knew it wasn't true.  

On 6/28/1967 at the urging of coworkers he went to the FBI again.  Communication breakdown/the FBI lied, said both men ran north from the back of the TSBD.  Then said Ed came back two hours later claiming he went back and looked and couldn't have seen where he said, "these two men had been on the fence or something else."   The FBI talked to dad and a brother who said, "he has distorted facts of events observed by him."

"Officially this was the end of any investigation at this time.  Unofficially, Hoffman said one FBI agent told him to keep quiet about what he had seen or "you might get killed."

3/25/1977, one of Ed's supervisors who knew sign language contacted the FBI and said I don't think you understand and he thought he deserved to be heard.  At his urging they talked to him on 3/28/1977 with the supervisor as a translator going to where he was at and taking pictures.   Then nothing, evermore. 

"Since Hoffman, despite his hearing (and vocal) disability, appears to be a most credible witness and since his story only reinforces those of others who told of gunmen on the knoll, it deserves serious consideration."

Posted in memory and appreciation of Ed Hoffman and Jim Marrs.   

[Denise Hazelwood]

On 5/30/2024 at 6:27 PM, Ron Bulman said:

Ed Hoffman was a witness from the other side of the tracks.  Granted he wasn't on the curb when the limo passed as he had climbed up the hill to look over the tracks into Dealy Plaza.  Being deaf and mute he wouldn't have heard the shots.  He only knew something was wrong for sure when he saw the limo come out from under the overpass and saw JFK laying down in Jackie's lap with blood all around.  He tried to make himself understood to a policeman on the overpass using hand gestures but was waved off.  He later explained to others through sign language he had seen a man in a suit with a rifle run behind the fence to it's end and tossed the rifle to a railroad worker who disassembled it and put it in a soft leather bag and took off north through the rail yards while the other man went back toward the knoll walking normally.

Ed Hoffman has been something of an enigma to me.  I have only seen one video of Hoffman, in which he didn't describe actually seeing a shooter on the railroad yard side of the fence, but seeing somebody toss what he thought was a rifle into the trunk of a car, and seeing somebody else running away. I have also read (somewhere) that his father described him as "making up stories."

I don't know about that, but here's what I do know:

Hoffman communicated in American Sign Language (ASL), a language with which I am familiar, though I'm not a native signer myself. I know that things often get "lost in translation." What I want is a video of Hoffman telling his story describing his "shooter," which I can take to my own Level 5 interpreter to reverse-interpret independently of what has been elsewhere reported, and which I can watch myself, to see if he really said what he supposedly said. So far, I haven't found that.

If anyone knows where to find that, please share, because I would like to see it.

[Denise Hazelwood]

On 5/30/2024 at 4:09 PM, Jamey Flanagan said:

I find it hard to believe that you wouldn't hear the shots no matter how faint or the screams of the crowd turn from exhilaration to horror.

Don't forget that none of the bystanders were expecting an assassination, and that when they first heard the shots, they still didn't realize that a shooting was taking place. The most common reaction, especially to the first shots, was thinking the sound was "firecrackers" or "backfire," so they didn't start screaming right away. Mary Moorman thought her picture was simultaneous with the "first" shot, admitted in a same-day interview that she didn't really know what was going on, and didn't get down on the ground until after she had taken her picture and more "shots were still being fired." It was at that point that she finally realized a shooting was taking place.

We're talking about a very brief period of time, less than 10 seconds for the whole shooting sequence. It took seconds, not minutes. 

Then there was the whole issue of the inattention blindness phenomenon. It took time for people to realize what exactly was going on.

[David Von Pein]

The Jack Daniel film: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8UwZ588YcqIRWpYOTF2U3c1TXc/view

And Mel McIntire's photo:

Edited June 1 by David Von Pein

[Denise Hazelwood]

On 5/30/2024 at 5:44 PM, Chris Bristow said:

The echo explanation never made much sense to me. If echos fooled people that day they would have reported closer to 6 shots. If echos were the reason for the reported last shots being close together, why did they not report the earlier shots as close together?

Exactly! And that double-bang is also evident in the acoustic analysis, with the first shot of the double-bang acoustically attributed to the "Grassy Knoll." (I actually contend that it came from the road in front of the Knoll, from the SS follow-up car, close enough to the test shot location to mimic the echo pattern of a knoll shot. Bear in mind there was something like a 25' foot side-side allowance along the fence for the shooter's location, which I also think would allow for a frontal variance.

I'm also certain that the misperception of separate and distinct shots as "echos" contributed to a general under-reporting of the number of shots. Clint Hill said that the last shot had "some kind of an echo" while various bystanders described a double-bang. That shot/echo confusion, plus inattention blindness, explains why witnesses only reported "3 or 4" initially (later settling on "3" after the news started reported on only 3 hulls being found in the TSBD), while the acoustical evidence has at least 5 "suspect impulses" including a double-bang spacing of the last two shots (with echo patterns that could be matched to test shots from the TSBD or Grassy Knoll. There was also an additional impulse before and another one after these 5 that I feel should not have been rejected, but the only test shot locations were the TSBD and the fence area of the knoll, not the places where I think these two shots were fired) 

[Denise Hazelwood]

3 minutes ago, David Von Pein said:

And Mel McIntire's photo:

Showing Hickey holding the AR-15.

Oddly, there are 3 agents on the running board of the follow-up car in the McIntyre photo, but in the Volkland/Stemmons Freeway photo, they're all inside the car, with 3 agents sitting across the front seat. At what point did the agents get inside the car? 

The reason I ask, is there are extraneous sounds of "doors slamming" in the acoustical evidence, which I like. I also think many of the photos and especially the Zapruder film were altered (e.g., Linda Willis describing at least one of her father's pictures as having been "physically altered." So I'd like to know if McIntire ever authenticated his photo, or gave a history of his photo after he took it?

[David Von Pein]

57 minutes ago, Denise Hazelwood said:

Oddly, there are 3 agents on the running board of the follow-up car in the McIntyre photo, but in the Volkland/Stemmons Freeway photo, they're all inside the car, with 3 agents sitting across the front seat. At what point did the agents get inside the car? 

They must have gotten inside the car sometime between these 2 photos (McIntire #2 and the Volkland picture)....