The First Shot

[Jerry Organ]

It certainly is not consistent with a first shot at z160 when the VP car is still in the intersection in the middle of the turn onto Elm St.

Well if you think the VP car is so far down down for the first shot, what about the comments from witnesses that the car was further back up Elm when the first shot was heard?

[Charles Collins]

If Greer is strictly looking at the Underpass during the first shot, as you maintain, how is he able to gauge where the car is relative to the Depository? He must either have just glanced at the building or formed a mental picture of it's location. And if he can do that for the Z130s, why not for the Z150s-Z160s?

It doesn't seem like Greer was exclusively concentrating on the Underpass, that he may have been glancing around.

     Mr. SPECTER. When you were watching the overpass at that time,
          did you observe anything on the overpass?
     Mr. GREER. Not that I can remember now.
     Mr. SPECTER. Did you observe that there was no one present on the
          overpass?
     Mr. GREER. My recollection, there may have been a police officer up
          there. It is vague to me now everything that I had seen at that time.

When he was looking at the Underpass earlier, Greer didn't look well enough to recall there were many people on top of the Underpass.

Greer seems surer of the car's location relative to the SW corner of the Depository: "The President's automobile was almost past this building." That gets it further down Elm Street than you like.

The car is only midway along the Depository's South facade in the Z130s.

The car is only midway along the Depository's South facade in the Z130s.

Yes, I can see that. However you are the one who brought up peripheral vision. And the south facade of the TSBD is at an angle to Elm Street. This would make a difference in perception to Greer versus it being parallel with Elm Street.

[John Tonkovich]

Twonkovich: I'll let the rudeness of you just referring to me by my surname go (and spelling it incorrectly) because the rest of your post is so funny 

My apologies.  I misspelled your name. Please forgive me. Thx

[Dan O'meara]

If Greer is strictly looking at the Underpass during the first shot, as you maintain, how is he able to gauge where the car is relative to the Depository? He must either have just glanced at the building or formed a mental picture of it's location. And if he can do that for the Z130s, why not for the Z150s-Z160s?

It doesn't seem like Greer was exclusively concentrating on the Underpass, that he may have been glancing around.

     Mr. SPECTER. When you were watching the overpass at that time,
          did you observe anything on the overpass?
     Mr. GREER. Not that I can remember now.
     Mr. SPECTER. Did you observe that there was no one present on the
          overpass?
     Mr. GREER. My recollection, there may have been a police officer up
          there. It is vague to me now everything that I had seen at that time.

When he was looking at the Underpass earlier, Greer didn't look well enough to recall there were many people on top of the Underpass.

Greer's WC testimony reveals how unreliable he is as a witness. He makes a lot of how much he was focussed on the underpass:

"Mr. GREER. No, sir. I had not any chance to look much at that building (TSBD) at all. When I made the turn into Elm Street, I was watching the overpass expressway--the overpass, or what was ahead of me. I always look at any--where I go underneath anything, I always watch above, so if there is anyone up there that I can move so that I won't go over the top of anyone, if they are unidentified to me, unless it is a policeman or something like that. We try to avoid going under them."

Then, when asked about the underpass he'd been examining so intently:

Mr. SPECTER. At that time, did you make a conscious effort to observe what was present, if anything, on that overpass?
Mr. GREER. Yes, sir. I was making sure that I could not see anyone that might be standing there, and I didn't see anything that I was afraid of on the overpass.
Mr. SPECTER. Did you see anything at all on the overpass?
Mr. GREER. Not that I can now remember.

"Not that I can now remember"? In the picture Jerry posted there are 10 men on the underpass!. When pushed on it his memory clears a little:

Mr. SPECTER. Did you observe that there was no one present on the overpass?
Mr. GREER. My recollection, there may have been a police officer up there. It is vague to me now everything that I had seen at that time.

There "may have been" one police officer up there. Not a very convincing recollection. In fact, he seems to remember very little:

Mr. SPECTER. Now, you have described motorcycles. How many were present with the President's automobile, if any?
Mr. GREER. I could not toll the exact amount of motorcycles that were escorting us at that time.

Mr. SPECTER. Now, do you know how many cars back your car was in the motorcade?
Mr. GREER. No; I don't know how many police cars were ahead of us

Mr. SPECTER. And as you turned onto Elm Street, how far, to the best of your ability to estimate, was your automobile from the overpass which you have just described?
Mr. GREER. I wouldn't have a distance recollection at all on how far it was. It wasn't too far. I just could not give you the distance.

Mr. SPECTER. As you turned onto Elm, did you have any opportunity to observe how far behind you the President's follow-up car was?
Mr. GREER. No, sir. I was not looking in my mirror; I could not say how far it was behind me at the time.

Mr. SPECTER. How many lanes of travel were there on Elm Street?
Mr. GREER. It was either three or four lanes wide. I have forgotten.

Mr. SPECTER. Did you hear anyone in the car say anything from the time of the first shot until the time of the third shot?
Mr. GREER. Not to the best of my recollection, I don't remember.

Mr. SPECTER. Did you observe any bullets strike any portion of the car or ricochet in any way during the course of the shooting?
Mr. GREER. No, sir; I did not.

Mr. SPECTER. What is your best estimate of the distance between the point where the assassination occurred and Parkland Hospital?
Mr. GREER. No, sir; I haven't. It seemed like endless miles and probably wasn't very far, but it seemed like to me it was endless getting there. I was-

Mr. SPECTER. Are you able to give us an estimate with reasonable accuracy on the time it took?
Mr. GREER. No, sir.


Not exactly inspiring but that's not the worst of it. There are lesser things like him forgetting that he turned round twice, not once, and to forget that the inside of the limo was sprayed with fragments (Kellerman describes it as a flurry of shots) seems unlikely but to forget that he applied the brakes and slowed the limo down to walking pace? Really?
There are other niggling things -

GREER ...My recollection here is that there wasn't too many people on Elm Street--a few scattered people at that point.
Mr. SPECTER. And your finger indicated there the position near the Texas School Depository Building?

The crowds outside the TSBD can hardly be described as 'a few scattered people'.

Mr. SPECTER. When you accelerated your automobile, did you at any time come alongside of or pass the police car in front of you?
Mr. GREER. No, sir; I never passed it.

The Bell film shows the limo clearly overtaking the car in front.

His state of mind at the time of the event is revealed in little snippets:

"I was kind of shocked at the time, I guess anything could have and I wouldn't have known what hit me."

"Mr. Kellerman said to me, "Get out of here fast." And I cannot remember even the other shots or noises that was. I cannot quite remember any more."

Greer's testimony is clearly unreliable and should not be relied upon to ascertain the location of the first shot. Kellerman's testimony is far more reliable and locates the first shot at a relatively specific point.

[Andrew Mason]

Well if you think the VP car is so far down down for the first shot, what about the comments from witnesses that the car was further back up Elm when the first shot was heard?

All those quotes are quite consistent with a first shot with the VP car in the vicinity of the "x" that he marked, maybe a bit earlier.  "rounding a curve" does not mean "turning the 135 degree turn at Elm".  "Rounding a curve" is what the car did after the turn following the curved lanes on Elm St. 
"Just made the turn" means a short time after completing the turn, not in the middle of making the turn.

[Andrew Mason]

Greer's testimony is clearly unreliable and should not be relied upon to ascertain the location of the first shot. Kellerman's testimony is far more reliable and locates the first shot at a relatively specific point.

There is a difference between being reliable and being observant.  Greer admitted he had only vague recollections of much of what was going on around him after the first shot. 

Reliability is determined by fitting one's recollections to the rest of the evidence.  If you wanted to establish whether there were people on the overpass, you would not use Greer's evidence because he admitted that he had only a vague recollection of that.  But if you wanted to know whether his clear evidence about when the first shot occurred, you would see how it fit with the rest of the evidence.  As far as I can determine, it fits very well with the rest of the evidence.

According to Greer, the limo was just about past the western edge of the TSBD.  That puts it within 20 frames of z200, either way. That fits with a host of witnesses along Elm St., witnesses in the motorcade and photographers such as Phil Willis and Hugh Betzner who identified the time of the first shot in that same range.

Greer also had a clear recollection of turning around immediately after hearing the second shot, which he does at z278-80 and seeing JBC falling back.  We can see that in the zfilm.  The recollection of a shot just prior fits with what Hickey and Kinney observed with the hair flying up as seen in the zfilm at z273- 76. It also fits with the shot pattern recalled by over 40 witnesses.

[Dan O'meara]

All those quotes are quite consistent with a first shot with the VP car in the vicinity of the "x" that he marked, maybe a bit earlier.  "rounding a curve" does not mean "turning the 135 degree turn at Elm".  "Rounding a curve" is what the car did after the turn following the curved lanes on Elm St. 
"Just made the turn" means a short time after completing the turn, not in the middle of making the turn.

All of the quotes from the VP Secret Service car have nothing whatsoever to do with picture they are connected with . This seems so obvious I'm slightly confused as to why it's been posted. The quotes clearly belong to a moment when the VP SS car is actually on Elm Street and not still on Houston.

[Jerry Organ]

There is a difference between being reliable and being observant.  Greer admitted he had only vague recollections of much of what was going on around him after the first shot. 

Reliability is determined by fitting one's recollections to the rest of the evidence.  If you wanted to establish whether there were people on the overpass, you would not use Greer's evidence because he admitted that he had only a vague recollection of that.  But if you wanted to know whether his clear evidence about when the first shot occurred, you would see how it fit with the rest of the evidence.  As far as I can determine, it fits very well with the rest of the evidence.

You're a Defense Attorney. That means you know how to lie better than most in order to advance your case. And there's plenty of porkies in your PDF.

According to Greer, the limo was just about past the western edge of the TSBD.  That puts it within 20 frames of z200, either way. That fits with a host of witnesses along Elm St., witnesses in the motorcade and photographers such as Phil Willis and Hugh Betzner who identified the time of the first shot in that same range.

Greer also had a clear recollection of turning around immediately after hearing the second shot, which he does at z278-80 and seeing JBC falling back.  We can see that in the zfilm.  The recollection of a shot just prior fits with what Hickey and Kinney observed with the hair flying up as seen in the zfilm at z273- 76. It also fits with the shot pattern recalled by over 40 witnesses.

The driver Greer possibly facing forward, though not sure.		Greer's shirt pattern and amount of flesh tone changes; could be turning his head towards back.
Greer's hairline first comes into view. It matches ...		... a later frame when we're sure Greer is facing backward.

Greer's head turn didn't start at Z278. Greer is turned backward at Z273, and possibly began to turn his head in the Z250s.