Tippit Shooting 1:15-1:16

[Bill Brown]

TIPPIT SHOOTING, 1:15-1:16

Mary Wright stated that she heard the shots and called the police immediately after the shooting. (interview with George & Patricia Nash)

Barbara Davis heard the shots and stated that, from the door, she saw Helen Markham across the street yelling that a police officer was shot and killed and then she saw a man with a gun walking across her front yard.  Davis looked over and saw the police car.  Immediately after seeing the police car, she went inside and phoned the operator and reported the shooting to the police.  (affidavit, 11/22/63)

L.J. Lewis was at the Johnny Reynolds Motor Company, located one block south of the shooting.  He called the police immediately after hearing the gunshots and seeing a man with a gun trotting down Patton toward Jefferson.  (affidavit, 8/26/64)

Murray Jackson, the police radio dispatcher, received an alert at 1:17 from the "citizen using the police radio" (T.F. Bowley).  Upon being told by the citizen that a policeman had been shot and that it was on Tenth Street between Marsalis & Beckley, Jackson immediately calls out for "78".  After getting no response, he again calls out for "78".  Jackson is calling out for "78" because that is Tippit's call number.  On 11/22/63, Tippit was "78".  That he calls out for Tippit after receiving the alert from the "citizen using the police radio" tells us that at 1:17, Jackson was made aware, for the very first time, that Tippit had been shot.

Since we know that Mary Wright, Barbara Davis and L.J. Lewis called the police immediately... and we know that Murray Jackson (the dispatcher) was unaware of the shooting until 1:17, it becomes painfully obvious that Wright, Davis and Lewis phoned in the shooting at a point in time just before the "citizen using the police radio" alerted Jackson.  If these three witnesses had phoned in the shooting much earlier, then Jackson would have been already made aware of the shooting by the time Bowley reported it at 1:17 and would have put an all-points bulletin.  No all-points bulletin was put out by dispatch until AFTER dispatch (Jackson) was alerted at 1:17 by Bowley using the patrol car radio.

Once a citizen picks up the telephone to call the police to report a shooting, how long does it take for that information to reach the police dispatcher?  The citizen picks up the phone and dials zero to reach the operator.  The operator answers and the citizen asks to be transferred to the police department to report a shooting.  The citizen is transferred to the police department.  The person on duty answering the phone at the police station asks the citizen for the information of what occurred and where.  The citizen quickly explains that someone has been shot on Tenth Street in Oak Cliff.  The phone operator at the police department then writes down the information onto a slip and sends it down a conveyor belt, if you will, straight to the police dispatcher.  Once he receives the slip, the dispatcher (in this case, Murray Jackson) puts out the information over the air waves to all patrol cars in Dallas.  The entire process from the time Wright, Davis and Lewis make their phone call to the time Jackson receives the information would take 60 to 90 seconds at the most.  This means that by the time Bowley alerts Jackson at 1:17 that there was a shooting of an officer on Tenth Street and Jackson was unaware until that moment, combined with how long it would take the information from Mary Wright's phone call to reach Jackson (60 to 90 seconds), and Wright called immediately after hearing the shots, that the shooting occurred at 1:15-1:16.

The bottom line is that Jackson doesn't know Tippit was shot until 1:17, yet Wright, Davis and Lewis called the police immediately after the shots.  Translation... Wright, Davis and Lewis called the police around 1:16.  If they had called any earlier, then Jackson would have already known about the shooting by the time Bowley reported it to Jackson at 1:17.

This matter-of-factly puts the Tippit shooting at 1:15-1:16.

[Michael Capasse]

If they had called any earlier, then Jackson would have already known about the shooting by the time Bowley reported it to Jackson at 1:17.

Your opinion of what someone "should have known" at a particular time doesn't mean very much.

[Michael T. Griffith]

This is a slightly tweaked rehash of Dale Myers' discredited "stop-watch" analysis of the time of the Tippit shooting. I address the time of the shooting in detail in my article "Did Oswald Shoot Tippit?":

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_j_022lJYli3B5Xyw8wLs-0nl6mDLo2t/view

I quote from part of my discussion on the issue:

This is a critical issue. Myers claims that Tippit was shot at 1:14:30, but the weight of
the evidence clearly indicates that the shooting occurred between 1:08 and 1:10, too
soon for Oswald to have walked to the scene. Moreover, two witnesses said that
Oswald entered the Texas Theater just a few minutes after 1:00 P.M., and that he
remained in the theater until he was arrested there about an hour later (Tom Lyons,
“The Ruddy Link Between the Tippit Murder and the Texas Theater,” The Fourth
Decade, July 1997, 4:5, p. 6).

26

The foundation of Myers' argument regarding when the Tippit shooting occurred is his
"stop-watch analysis" of the police tapes. Although the DPD and FBI transcripts have
Bowley calling the dispatcher at about 1:16, and even though Bowley said it was 1:10
when he first arrived to the scene, Myers says his stop-watch review of the tapes shows
Bowley did not make the call until 1:17:41 (p. 92). If Bowley did not call the police
dispatcher till 1:17:41, why did the Sheriff's Department dispatcher apparently begin to
respond to the shooting at 1:16, as the Sheriff's Office tape transcript seems to show
(17 H 372)?

Almost immediately after the 1:16 time notation, the Sheriff's dispatcher tells all units to
stay off the radio unless they have important traffic. Then, the dispatcher tries to contact
any squads in the area of "Jefferson and East 10th, 510 East Jefferson and 10th." This
is significant because this address is a combination of the address that Bowley and
dispatcher Hulse gave over the police radio. A deputy sheriff responds, and the
dispatcher tells him to remain in the area and to be on the watch for emergency
vehicles. . . .

The bulk of the evidence indicates that Tippit was shot several minutes earlier than
Myers can allow, and several minutes before Oswald could have arrived at the scene.
Myers sidesteps most of this evidence. For example, Myers fails to mention that Mrs.
Markham felt certain Tippit was shot at around 1:06 or 1:07. Bowley's watch-checked
time of 1:10 for his arrival at the scene matches well with Markham's time of 1:06-1:07
for the shooting and with Benavides' account that he waited a few minutes before he
approached the patrol car. It also corresponds with other eyewitness estimates of when
the shooting occurred.

The evidence clearly indicates that Tippit was shot very soon after he exited his car at
1:08. Tippit’s last transmission was at 1:08 and was mostly likely made to let the
dispatcher know that he was exiting his car, which was standard procedure. And, as
mentioned, Bowley arrived at the scene at 1:10. Thus, Markham’s time of 1:06 or 1:07
for the shooting is very close to the mark. Perhaps Myers did not think he could afford to
mention Mrs. Markham's comments about when the shooting occurred because he had
already noted that Markham was en route to her regular 1:12-1:15 bus when she
witnessed the Tippit slaying. Several other facts support Mrs. Markham's statements
about the time of the shooting.

Mrs. Markham said that she left her apartment building at 1:04, that it would have taken
her about 2 minutes to walk from her apartment building to the Tippit scene, that she
walked to her bus stop every day, and that she had a routine of leaving at 1:00 to catch
her bus. Myers would have us believe that Markham erred substantially, by 7 minutes,
in her recollection of when she left her apartment building, even though she noted that
as she was leaving she glanced at the clock in the laundry room of her apartment
building and that the clock read 1:04. Nonetheless, Myers argues that Mrs. Markham
was mistaken.

There's also the fact that Jackson's 12:45 transmission sending Tippit to Oak Cliff is highly suspect, as I discuss in my article. The first transcript submitted by the DPD contained no such instruction. It did not magically manifest itself until four months later. From my article:

Anyway, four months after the assassination, the FBI reported that they discovered
the 12:45 instruction. Hurt continues,

Not only was such an inexplicable instruction believed to be unique in the Dallas
Police Department, it also had not been in the first transcript. Moreover, none of
the police supervisors who testified earlier indicated that they knew anything
about it. . . .

From the beginning, there were peculiarities that surrounded not only the
fortuitous emergence of the evidence but also the specific radio dispatch. As
critic Meagher points out, the dispatch was made at the very height of the bedlam
that engulfed the Dallas Police Department during the minutes following the
assassination. No event in the city's history had created such frenzy. Not only
was the police switchboard jammed, but police officers had difficulty getting
through with crucially important radio messages concerning the state of
emergency in the wake of the assassination of President Kennedy.
Yet, there was time, at the height of this turbulence, for the dispatcher to order
Tippit and one other officer--who, if he heard the order, did not obey it--to move
into central Oak Cliff, where at that time there was not a single significant crime
that needed police attention. (Reasonable Doubt, pp. 160-161)

[Bill Brown]

Your opinion of what someone "should have known" at a particular time doesn't mean very much.

You're not paying attention.  Typical.

[Bill Brown]

Mr. BELIN. Within the general area of Number 11 on Exhibit 523. Now, Mr. Scoggins, you stated you were sitting in your cab as you stopped at your intersection. You had a coke and your lunch.
Mr. SCOGGINS. Yes, sir.
Mr. BELIN. What were you doing, eating your lunch?
Mr. SCOGGINS. I was in the process of eating it.
Mr. BELIN. You were in the process?
Mr. SCOGGINS. I had taken one or two bites of my sandwich and drank a couple of swallows out of my coke.
Mr. BELIN. All right.
Mr. DULLES. What time was this, approximately, as far as you can recall?
Mr. SCOGGINS. Around 1:20 in the afternoon.

===========

Mr. BELIN. Do you remember whether or not your dispatcher recorded any time on his sheets as to the time you called in after the Tippit shooting?
Mr. SCOGGINS. When I was down there giving my statement to my supervisor, he asked me what time it was, and I said I don't have any idea, so he picked up the phone and called the dispatcher, and he said it was 1:23.
Mr. BELIN. That is the time that he recorded it?
Mr. SCOGGINS. Yes. He must have recorded it up there because he said it was 1:23 in the afternoon.
Mr. BELIN. When you called in after the shooting?
Mr. SCOGGINS. Yes.

 

If the Tippit shooting occurred at 1:07 (ish), are we to believe that it took William Scoggins sixteen minutes before he reached his dispatcher to call for help?

[Michael Capasse]

You're not paying attention.  Typical.

  Is that your stock answer ? Too bad none of the times stamps can be relied upon.
So your starting time is bogus.

[Bill Brown]

Is that your stock answer ? Too bad none of the times stamps can be relied upon.
So your starting time is bogus.

So then you DO foolishly believe that it took Scoggins about 16 minutes to reach his dispatcher in order to ask for help.  Okay.