Gov. John Connally Grips His White Stetson Hat at Z-272

[John Corbett]

If you observed a car accident a few hours ago do you think that you could give an account of details of what occurred that are clear in your mind?  If so, I gather you would still think that your recollection, though clear in your memory a few hours after the events is unreliable.

Like most witnesses, I would probably get some things wrong and some things right. I'm guessing I would get more wrong than right.

UPDATE: After initially posting this, I recalled an event about 40 years ago in which I did witness a car crash. I was in a parking lot about to get into my car when I heard the squealing of brakes and turned just in time to see a sedan T-bone a station wagon. My most vivid memory of that event was seeing the station wagon being spun around and the windshield bursting into tiny shards of glass. This happened on my lunch hour and when I returned to the office, I told my co-workers what I had just witnessed. One of them overheard me telling the story and he was concerned because where the accident took place was only about a half block from his house. He asked for more details, apparently concerned if his might wife had been involved. I wasn't able to help him much. I was fairly certain the one car was a station wagon but a little less certain about the sedan. My recollection was the station wagon was brown. I had no memory of what the color was of the other car. I remembered just a few details because that is what drew my attention. Everything else was a blur. I would guess this would be typical of most witnesses when caught off guard by a surprising event. 

[Andrew Mason]

Like most witnesses, I would probably get some things wrong and some things right. I'm guessing I would get more wrong than right.

Suppose you were in Dealey Plaza to watch the President’s motorcade and you heard three loud rifle shots each separated by about 5 seconds. You were then asked to give a statement a few hours later and asked what you recalled.
1. If you did not recall the spacing of the shots clearly in your memory would you mention it?
2. If you did recall the spacing of the shots and it was clear in your mind so that you mentioned it in your statement, would you think your statement was reliable?
 
 

[Zeon Mason]

Perhaps you mean this kind of uniform forward motion immediately before he goes back onto Nellie’s lap:

If the bullet deflected off the back of the wrist as Dr. Shaw suggested and as the shirt cuff might suggest:


and if the narrow slit in the palm side was caused be one of many small bone shards created by the impact, then maybe that would explain why the fragments deflected up to the top of the windshield area….

 It is looks to me like JC leaning back is a SIDEWAYS  movement relative to the bullet trajectory from TSBD. But that’s just my eyeball judgement .  It may require some help from JohnM to post measurement overlays on film sequences and frame by frame.

It’s improbable imo
That JC was hit at that point (Z275?) anyway because his upper body looks like it is too far rotated around to his right for that entry/exit wound angle thru his chest to be plausible from a Z275 shot.

You’re going to need to work this out with Dale Myers lol.

[John Corbett]

The single most compelling argument against a shot at Z275 is that it is only 36 frames before the headshot which was fired at or just before Z311. That is less than 2 seconds which is less than the minimum time of 2.4 seconds the FBI determined the Carcano could be fired accurately. It has been shown that the Carcano can be fired in less than 2 seconds between shots but that is without taking time to reacquire the target and take aim. Oswald could not have fired a shot at Z275 and followed it with a precise shot at Z311. Why would he have even attempted such a rapid fired shot? At a bare minimum, there would have been 44 frames between Oswald's shots and even that is a stretch. For the headshot, he took almost 5 seconds to reacquire his target, aim, and squeeze the trigger.

Andrew, you need to go back to the drawing board. 

[John Corbett]

Suppose you were in Dealey Plaza to watch the President’s motorcade and you heard three loud rifle shots each separated by about 5 seconds. You were then asked to give a statement a few hours later and asked what you recalled.
1. If you did not recall the spacing of the shots clearly in your memory would you mention it?
2. If you did recall the spacing of the shots and it was clear in your mind so that you mentioned it in your statement, would you think your statement was reliable?

1. I would mention it if asked and take a guess.
2. Absolutely not.

[Andrew Mason]

The single most compelling argument against a shot at Z275 is that it is only 36 frames before the headshot which was fired at or just before Z311. That is less than 2 seconds which is less than the minimum time of 2.4 seconds the FBI determined the Carcano could be fired accurately. It has been shown that the Carcano can be fired in less than 2 seconds between shots but that is without taking time to reacquire the target and take aim. Oswald could not have fired a shot at Z275 and followed it with a precise shot at Z311. Why would he have even attempted such a rapid fired shot? At a bare minimum, there would have been 44 frames between Oswald's shots and even that is a stretch. For the headshot, he took almost 5 seconds to reacquire his target, aim, and squeeze the trigger.

Andrew, you need to go back to the drawing board.

The head shot did not strike until after z312 was exposed. And the second was not as late as z275 because the forward recoil-like motion begins at z271-272. There is a change in the appearance of the wrist area between those two frames as well. Also there is this apparent movement of the left sunvisor:

and JFK’s hair flies up at z273-276 just as Hickey observed at the time of the second shot:

I expect may have taken a frame or two for the air movement from the bullet shock wave to reach the head and start lifting the hair.

From the beginning of z271 to the beginning of z313 is 42 frames or 2.3 seconds.  Are you suggesting that Oswald could not have fired the third shot 2.3 seconds after the second in a last desperate attempt to hit his mark? He wouldn’t even have to move the rifle held in place by the strap and boxes as the target moved a bit more to the right as it followed the left to right curve toward the underpass.

[Andrew Mason]

1. I would mention it if asked and take a guess.
2. Absolutely not.

So what if the shot pattern had a pattern that enabled you to remember the number of shots because there was one shot and a longish pause of about 4-5 seconds and then two rapid shots close together and this was clear in your mind. Would you think that your memory at the time you gave your statement was reliable
1. as to the number of shots?
2. as to the shot pattern?