Dallas PD dispatcher removed?

[Guest Mark Valenti]

Her job was described as of vital importance in coordinating the dispatch of communications for officers in the field.

She received emergency calls and issued information directly to the dispatch officer in the downtown division headquarters, located about a mile from Dealey Plaza.

She was privy to all transmissions, and would have heard all communications regarding the murder of Officer Tippit.

Mark, any chance of getting a source for this job description?

Ashton

It's from something called the "LA Free Press Special Report Number One" published in 1978 by Larry Flynt. There's no byline on the article but the Senior Editors were Mark Lane, Steve Jaffe and Eric Loveman. Executive Editors were Peter Black, Caryne Brown, James M. Cookson, April Ferguson, Donald Freed, Dick Gregory, Robert Groden, Jonathon King, Carolyn Sanford, Richard Scoby and Judith Tomlinson.

The entire article:

DALLAS POLICE RADIO DISPATCHER REMOVED

"An article in the Dallas Morning News printed just hours before the President was shot on November 22, 1963 reported that Margie Barnes, a secretary in the communications center of the Dallas Police Department Radio Patrol Division, would not be on the job that day. She was moved out of her crucial position in a manner she desribed as "astonishing."

According to an officer at the Dallas Police Department, her job was of vital importance in "coordinating the dispatch of communications for officers in the field." She received emergency calls and issued information direction to the dispatch officer in the downtown division headquarters, located approximately one mile from Dealey Plaza. In her her key position she was privy to all transmissions, and would have also heard all communications regarding the murder of Officer J.D. Tippit.

On the day before the assassination she received an unsolicited, and unexpected, engraved invitation to the President's luncheon at the Dallas Trade Mart. Miss Barnes, who said she had planned to watch the President's motorcade from the window of the Dallas Police Building, told the press that the invitation was placed on her desk by police Sgt. R.E. Dugger, and evidently had come in the mail. Just how the mail arrived in the morning before she came to work, and not at the normal time, was not explained in the story.

Unlike today's computerized operation, where dispatches are handled by a clerk and sent automatically to the location in whichever substation is nearest the call, on November 22, 1963, Miss Barnes would have been one of the few peole in headquarters at the center of police communications, and therefore was involved in the handling of dispatches dealing with critical police operations in the pursuit of the killers of President Kennedy and Officer Tippit.

Miss Barnes, who was never questioned by the Warren Commission, counsel for the Commission, the FBI or any authorities, was in her seat at table 356 at the Trade Mart luncheon when the President was shot. No mention of Margie Barnes is made in the Warren Report or its 26 volumes of evidence and testimony, nor of how her job was handled on that day."

Edited December 10, 2006 by Mark Valenti

[Ashton Gray]

Her job was described as of vital importance in coordinating the dispatch of communications for officers in the field.

She received emergency calls and issued information directly to the dispatch officer in the downtown division headquarters, located about a mile from Dealey Plaza.

She was privy to all transmissions, and would have heard all communications regarding the murder of Officer Tippit.

Mark, any chance of getting a source for this job description?

Ashton

As I recall, there were two 911 phone calls made from the Tippit crime scene. One was made by one of the Davis girls, and one by a neighbor down the street whose name escapes me. As far as I know, the timing of these calls was never established, although it is likely that both calls preceded Bowley's radio transmission. The exact time of the Davis phone call, if known, would be extremely helpful in pinpointing the time of the Tippit murder, but as far as I know the person at DPD H.Q. who received the call was never identified, and the Warren Commission neglected to subpoena the phone records of the Davis household.

If the job description we have for Ms. Barnes is accurate, then perhaps she (and her log book, assuming she kept one) would have been an indispensable witness to the circumstances surrounding the Tippit murder. It was by ignoring the time of the Davis phone call that David Belin and his WC brethren were able to claim that the murder occurred much later than the time given by Helen Markham and TF Bowley.

This is outstanding. Thank you very much, Raymond.

TO MARK:

Thank you very much for the cite and article. What you put in bold is a fascinating detail.

This just gets curiouser and curiouser...

Ashton

[Myra Bronstein]

...

It's from something called the "LA Free Press Special Report Number One" published in 1978 by Larry Flynt. There's no byline on the article but the Senior Editors were Mark Lane, Steve Jaffe and Eric Loveman. Executive Editors were Peter Black, Caryne Brown, James M. Cookson, April Ferguson, Donald Freed, Dick Gregory, Robert Groden, Jonathon King, Carolyn Sanford, Richard Scoby and Judith Tomlinson.

...

Lookey, another Larry Flynt link.

And the link link:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=8771

[Myra Bronstein]

Man oh man...

1) Secretary in the police department's radio control division is removed from the division on D-day.

2) 12:29 pm on Nov 22, '63, Dallas -- "The Dallas Police radio systems Channel One, reserved for officers participating in the security of the President, is suddenly immobilized." --"Trauma Room One"

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=8644

Um, they are related, right?

I think that not only are these two events related, but also the events you chronicled in your topic The Flakey Power Grid, and that they all are linked to the arrival in Dallas of a team—of unknown number and assignment—that had been briefed by the CIA and flown into Dallas by Tosh Plumlee.

This supposedly was an "abort team," having been given some kind of still unclear information about a possible attempt on the President's life that they somehow were to prevent. The legion of holes in the story as it exists makes it look like fishnet, and I already have posed questions for Mr. Plumlee about his avowed prior intelligence connections to Lee Harvey Oswald in a topic I started, Would Tosh Plumlee Please Pick Up the White Courtesy Phone? So far, he's not picking up.

Meanwhile, this topic had already grabbed my attention when I saw that Gary Mack had hastened to get into the record, through Steve Thomas, that Margie Barnes was a secretary, not a dispatcher. When I responded that despite her job title, her job description was of great interest, lo and behold I was contacted by Gary Mack, calling the description Mark Valenti had given into question. So here, again, is how Mark described her job:

Her job was described as of vital importance in coordinating the dispatch of communications for officers in the field.

She received emergency calls and issued information directly to the dispatch officer in the downtown division headquarters, located about a mile from Dealey Plaza.

She was privy to all transmissions, and would have heard all communications regarding the murder of Officer Tippit.

In response to my having pointed that out, here is what I got from Gary Mack in two separate messages to me. In the first he said:

• You might consider asking Mark exactly where his characterization of Barnes' job comes from. My understanding is that only the dispatchers on duty could monitor the police radio. The secretaries' work, while important to daily operations, was hardly "crucial," as Mark termed it. Some clarification is in order, don't you agree? —Gary Mack
  

Well, I believe it's no secret what an agreeable sort of chap I am, so I did agree. And so I asked Gary Mack for clarification of exactly where his characterization of Barnes's job came from. And he replied, in pertinent part:

• My information came initially from Bowles, the department supervisor, who said the secretaries weren't involved in the daily broadcasts. They did filing and typing, nothing more. That information matched what other JFK researchers such as Larry Harris had found.
  Only the dispatchers on duty heard and responded to the broadcasts. —Gary Mack
  

Hmmm. This almost seems to be a tight-rope walk (by whom I don't know, if it is) across the relevant part of the job description originally provided by Mark, which doesn't say she "monitored the police radio" or that she was "involved in the daily broadcasts" or that she "heard and responded to the broadcasts." What it says is that she "received emergency calls and issued information directly to the dispatch officer in the downtown division headquarters."

But my agreeability being equaled only by my fairmindedness, it only seems right to ask Mark Valenti now where he came by the job description he posted for Ms. Barnes.

Pending the arrival of that, I have since wondered of the possibility of a planned emergency call that had to be made to police on 22 November 1963 by someone whose voice Ms. Barnes might be too familiar with. When I have time I plan to scour the records and make a list of any known calls of such nature that day, but if anyone happens to know or think of calls that might qualify, please post them here.

Ashton

Iffy info from Gary Mack?! Gosh...

[Myra Bronstein]

...

I think that not only are these two events related, but also the events you chronicled in your topic The Flakey Power Grid, and that they all are linked to the arrival in Dallas of a team—of unknown number and assignment—that had been briefed by the CIA and flown into Dallas by Tosh Plumlee.

This supposedly was an "abort team," having been given some kind of still unclear information about a possible attempt on the President's life that they somehow were to prevent.

The legion of holes in the story as it exists makes it look like fishnet, and I already have posed questions for Mr. Plumlee about his avowed prior intelligence connections to Lee Harvey Oswald in a topic I started, Would Tosh Plumlee Please Pick Up the White Courtesy Phone? So far, he's not picking up.

...

Yes, I am familiar with the "abort team" story.

Good luck on your quixotic quest to get answers there good buddy.

[David Lifton]

Hi Mark,

This image below shows Margie Barnes displaying her invitation. Her father (deceased) was a party faithful but she said it didn't really explain why she received the invitation especially when so many staunch Kennedy supporters didn't.

In 1974, a Margie Barnes was killed when the motorcycle she was a passenger on was slammed into by a hit and run car. I have not been able to find out if this was the same Margie Barnes.

As to Dugger, I have some stuff on him somewhere that I will have to dig up.

FWIW.

James

James:

I know that many years have passed, but still. . on the assumption that you are still reading these boards. . . :

Did you ever find any more info on Sgt Dugger? (or. . on the Margie Barnes situation?)

if so, please do forward to me at dsl74@cornell.edu

Many thanks.

DSL

[Chris Newton]

Mr. Lifton

I found this article which features a story about 42 year old Sgt. Bob Duggar and his encounter with Jackie at Parkland:

http://articles.philly.com/1988-11-20/news/26248491_1_americans-kennedy-administration-jenkins

Video w/ interview of Dugger:

edit - added video

Edited October 4, 2015 by Chris Newton

[Chris Newton]

More on Dugger from the Weisberg collection:

http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/T%20Disk/Time-Life/Item%2017.pdf

So Jackie smoked?

[Chris Newton]

Margie Barnes and Sgt. Dugger are listed in the same division - pg.127

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=7517&page=2