Crowd on the other side of the Triple Under Pass

[Chris Bristow]

11 hours ago, Kevin Balch said:

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.

You made some interesting points. Yes I have heard they stopped the northbound traffic just prior to the limo entering the freeway.  I had heard the railroad traffic was shut down but recently looked for corroboration without any luck.
 DPD White was on the west side of the overpass and testified that he did not see or hear the  assassination because a "long" freight train was passing in front of him. No trains are found in any of the photographic evidence. If there was a southbound train it had to be moving over 30mph because Altgens 7 does not show a train.   If it was moving north it would have to be 4 cars long because in Willis 5 it has not reached the north end of the overpass yet. (At least it appears to me that the background on the north end of the overpass is visible in Willis 5.) A train would have blocked that view.
Micheal Brownlow asked two of the witnesses on the overpass if there was a train passing and they both said "no". Brownlow did not say why he was asking. I don't know what White heard or saw that day but it sounds like he was lying. 
  It is definitely possible a witness can hear one shot and not hear another. I think the first shot being mistaken by so many as a firecracker influenced their initial opinions on the number of shots. That's maybe why we get a lot of people hearing just 2 shots.

[Chris Bristow]

4 hours ago, Denise Hazelwood said:

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) 

I thought the variance of the acoustic evidence on the knoll shooter was only about 5 ft.
The knoll position is 100 ft or 1/10th sec beyond Hickey's location. Even if their  variance was 50 ft on the knoll position they should easily have distinguished between a shot from the knoll and Hickey since he was 100 ft closer to McClain.
 The smoke reported from the knoll has also been attributed to Hickey but this is, imo, impossible. The wind was blowing northeast. But even if it gusted directly north momentarily Hickeys smoke would be carried towards the southwest corner of the TSBD. For smoke from Hickey to appear along the witness lines of sight to the knoll fence it would have to drift on the wind about 130 ft to the Elm St extension near the southwest corner of the TSBD. It would pass behind the Stemmons sign and Zapruder and would be obviously much further away than the fence. Not to mention it would be traveling right to left as opposed to the knoll smoke accounts that had it moving left to right.
 As to the number of shots there does seem to be many factors contributing to the confusion. I think the safest assumption is 4 shots but that is just a guess.
 

[Chris Bristow]

4 hours ago, Denise Hazelwood said:

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?

I have heard stories from both sides saying the limo stopped on the onramp(Gary Mack's story about what Curry told him and Davis Lifton's account of finding two witnesses standing at the Stemmons onramp.), That would allow time for the SS agents to jump from the running boards to the seats. Makes sense since they are on the running boards so they can can jump off and run for the limo, but they can't do that on the freeway.
 Linda Willis did say her father recalled seeing trains in the yard through the colonnade windows. But in Willis 5 the southernmost end of the Pullman cars were not visible to him. From that line of sight the back of the 3rd Pullman car was at the far end of the 4th colonnade window and blocked from Willis' view.
She said they walked forward after willis 5  and took more photos. If they walked just 35 ft the train would have been visible in those photos. Those are most likely the photos that he remembered the trains from and were likely the photos not returned to him. 
 Here is a graphic showing the Willis 5 line of sight to the Pullman car. The rear of the 3rd Pullman car is found in the photo with the boxcar in the background. It is also seen in the McIntyre photos. Willis 5 was not altered as she suspected, they just couldn't see the train from there.

[Eddy Bainbridge]

12 hours ago, David Von Pein said:

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

And Mel McIntire's photo:

Thankyou for posting this photo, it appears to show that I was under a misapprehension about part of the plaza. At the right hand side of the photo there appears to be parked cars curving under the the underpass. Is this traffic? or static vehicles. I ask because this is a likely spot for the frontal head shot to come from.

[Denise Hazelwood]

16 hours ago, Chris Bristow said:

The smoke reported from the knoll has also been attributed to Hickey but this is, imo, impossible. The wind was blowing northeast. But even if it gusted directly north momentarily Hickeys smoke would be carried towards the southwest corner of the TSBD

The wind was blowing in a general north west direction, and Holland said that the smoke was coming “out” from under the tree about 8’ off the ground, but it would have to have been blowing back towards the railroad yards for the shooter to have been behind the fence, not blowing “out.” One of Holland’s colleagues, standing farther to his right, said that the smoke was “above the roadway.” Holland saw the footprints behind the car and heard a shot coming from that general direction and mistakenly assumed that the smoke had originated from the same location as the footprints, but the wind direction would have blown the smoke back into the railroad yards but further north, if that was where the shooter was located.

[Denise Hazelwood]

15 hours ago, Chris Bristow said:

Linda Willis did say her father recalled seeing trains in the yard through the colonnade windows. But in Willis 5 the southernmost end of the Pullman cars were not visible to him.

I can’t speak to your analysis, but Linda Willis was speaking about what showed in the photo immediately after it was developed, and Jim Towner commented that “trains” should have been visible in one of the photos used in a Sixth Floor Museum brochure, in a SFM Living History interview, so there’s confirmation for the Willis statement.

[Denise Hazelwood]

15 hours ago, Chris Bristow said:

I have heard stories from both sides saying the limo stopped on the onramp

I have heard that, too, about a stop on the other side of the Triple Underpass, but one would think that it would have shown up on the (Darnell?) film. At any rate, I don’t think such a stop was ever publicly admitted to, though I don’t doubt that it was possible.

[Ron Bulman]

As he ran down the slope waving his arms Hoffman was confronted with a "machine gun" pointed at him from the car.  Pistol grip, clip. Kinney's AR15 some think as he is photographed with it on Stemmons. 

[Chris Bristow]

2 hours ago, Denise Hazelwood said:

I can’t speak to your analysis, but Linda Willis was speaking about what showed in the photo immediately after it was developed, and Jim Towner commented that “trains” should have been visible in one of the photos used in a Sixth Floor Museum brochure, in a SFM Living History interview, so there’s confirmation for the Willis statement.

Yes she spoke about what one of her fathers photos showed right after developing.  I just assume it was one of his photos that was never returned to him.

 I assume that  because I know for sure  Willis 5 could not have shown the trains in the yard. That is not an assumption. We know exactly where Willis stood for Willis 5 because the lines of sight in That photo prove where it was taken from. We know exactly where the rear of the 3rd Pullman car was based on the McIntyre photos and the other photo I posted. They both show the exact same location.

The Roberdeau map and Google Earth both verify Willis could not see the trains from his position in Willis 5 and that is  an imperical fact. 

 My point is that trains were not removed from Willis 5 as there were no trains visible from that spot on Elm.

I have plotted Towner's line of sight for the post assassination footage but cant remember the results. I will recheck it. His recollection is independent of the Willis testimony and can't corroborate it as they were not standing in the same exact spot. Even if Towner was just 15 feet West of Willis 5 the train would become partially visible through the colonnade Windows.

 I don't know why you can't speak to the analysis of Willis' lines of sight that I posted. Maybe I was not clear enough in my graphic. But It is  an irrefutable illustration of Willis' line of sight to the trains. 

[Denny Zartman]

Regarding a comment made earlier in the thread:

Does anyone know if there any Dallas police officers stationed in the railyard during the motorcade?

[Ben Green]

On 6/1/2024 at 6:38 AM, Ron Bulman said:

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.   

Thanks Ron. I've read Crossfire a couple of times, but not for a while now. It was the first book on the JFKA I read and I agree it really is a fantastic piece of work. When I was a journalism student in the late 90s I sent Jim Marrs an email with a few questions about the assassination. He took the time to send me back a really detailed response. What a guy!

It seems that Ed Hoffman was treated quite shabbily by the authorities. I bet he would have been treated with a hell of a lot more respect had he not had any disabilities. 

[Jamey Flanagan]

41 minutes ago, Ben Green said:

Thanks Ron. I've read Crossfire a couple of times, but not for a while now. It was the first book on the JFKA I read and I agree it really is a fantastic piece of work. When I was a journalism student in the late 90s I sent Jim Marrs an email with a few questions about the assassination. He took the time to send me back a really detailed response. What a guy!

It seems that Ed Hoffman was treated quite shabbily by the authorities. I bet he would have been treated with a hell of a lot more respect had he not had any disabilities. 

Actually, I disagree with that final sentence. Honestly, I think it saved his life! None of the other witnesses had his disabilities but they were treated just as bad if not worse! And many ended up dead. I think his unique situation helped to keep his story suppressed for so long and kept him alive!

[Ben Green]

On 6/1/2024 at 9:38 AM, David Von Pein said:

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

 

 

I've not seen these images before. Is there a comprehensive/searchable online resource of high quality JFKA images available anywhere? I've searched with no success, so if such a thing exists i'd appreciate someone pointing me in the right direction.

[Denise Hazelwood]

On 6/2/2024 at 4:36 AM, Denny Zartman said:

Does anyone know if there any Dallas police officers stationed in the railyard during the motorcade?

I don't think so, but there were 2 cops on top of the Triple Underpass, I believe.

[Denise Hazelwood]

On 6/1/2024 at 8:08 AM, Chris Bristow said:

I thought the variance of the acoustic evidence on the knoll shooter was only about 5 ft.
The knoll position is 100 ft or 1/10th sec beyond Hickey's location. Even if their  variance was 50 ft on the knoll position they should easily have distinguished between a shot from the knoll and Hickey since he was 100 ft closer to McClain.

You're correct about it being 5 feet. I looked it up. I apologize for my mistake. However, I can still get an acoustic echo match, using the exact same lengths as https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol8/pdf/HSCA_Vol8_AS_1_Weiss.pdf p. 20, with my SS shooter (Hickey) and my motorcycle officer with the stuck mic--Jackson, not McLain. McLain was halfway between Houston and Elm when the shooting began. However, Jackson was in the perfect position to pick up the acoustic shockwave. I contend that Jackson was also the "Knoll Rider." The shockwave would have caused him to perceive the AR-15 shot as having come from the "Knoll", since acoustic shockwaves cause a misperception of the source of the sound as perpendicular to the path of the bullet.

It's on my to-do list to write an article on the acoustics. I will post a thread on that--including my drawing with echo correlations that match the distances as noted in the 3 echo paths on p. 20 above, as soon as I get a round tuit.