The Tippit Shooting At 1:15-1:16, FACT

[Kevin Balch]

Is there a reason you failed to mention that Helen Markham said she got to the Tippit scene no later than 1:08 and that Tippit had already been shot when she arrived? This is why she was certain Tippit was shot at 1:06 or 1:07.

I don't think this is correct. When Markham arrived at the corner of 10th street and Patton she stopped to let a police car pass by. She then saw the officer call over his killer to the car window and had a conversation with him.
So, Tippit was not killed before Markham's arrival at the scene.

Is there a reason you failed to mention that Domingo Benavides said that he did not try to use the police car's radio until "a few minutes" after Tippit had been shot because he was (quite understandably) afraid for his life?

You guys claim that Benavides waited in his truck for only a matter of seconds and not for a few minutes. But this flies in the face of common sense and ignores what Benavides himself initially said. If you were only 25-50 feet away from a shooting and feared you could be the next target, how long would you wait until coming out into the open? Nobody in their right mind would have come out of hiding so quickly in that situation.

Benavides did indeed say he waited "a few minutes" but that can't be right, for one simple reason. Callaway, who wasn't far from the scene of the shooting, testified that he heard the shots and after watching the suspect come down the street ran to 10th street. The distance he needed to cover would have taken him approx a minute. So, if Benavides did indeed stay in his car for a few minutes, Callaway would have arrived at the scene before Benavides was able to get to the police car to use the radio.

I thought Markham actually witnessed the Tippit shooting. Now you are saying she arrived after the shooting? And how accurate was the clock at the laundromat?

[Martin Weidmann]

I thought Markham actually witnessed the Tippit shooting. Now you are saying she arrived after the shooting? And how accurate was the clock at the laundromat?

Do you have a reading problem?

I did not say she arrived after the shooting. Try again!

[Martin Weidmann]

Well, sure. The whole "time thing" seems to me like a quest for certainty that just isn't possible.

So, if we can't rely on clocks and thus time stamps, how can LNs say with any kind of certainty that Tippit was shot at around 1:14:30?

Even more so, as there is evidence that Tippit's ambulance arrived at the hospital at 1:15. This time is given for the time of D.O.A. and also confirmed by police officer Davenport who followed the ambulance.

Btw, Tippit's murder wasn't a federal crime, yet the F.B.I. pestered hospital employees for days about the time of D.O.A.. Why would the F.B.I. even be interested in that, when they could simply have accepted the time on the death certificate?

[John Corbett]

So, if we can't rely on clocks and thus time stamps, how can LNs say with any kind of certainty that Tippit was shot at around 1:14:30?

Even more so, as there is evidence that Tippit's ambulance arrived at the hospital at 1:15. This time is given for the time of D.O.A. and also confirmed by police officer Davenport who followed the ambulance.

Btw, Tippit's murder wasn't a federal crime, yet the F.B.I. pestered hospital employees for days about the time of D.O.A.. Why would the F.B.I. even be interested in that, when they could simply have accepted the time on the death certificate?

LNs do not rely on time stamps to prove Oswald shot Tippit. With what is known, we can only approximate that. There is ample proof Oswald killed Tippit. There is the forensic evidence of the discarded shells which were matched to the handgun Oswald had in his possession when arrested to the exclusion of all other firearms in the world. There are also plenty of witnesses who IDed Oswald either as the shooter or the man they saw fleeing the scene. On top of that, Oswald tried to shoot one of the arresting officers when confronted in the theater. Anyone who can look at that evidence and refuse to believe Oswald was the killer is not somebody who wants to know the truth. That is somebody who wants their beliefs to be true.

It is the CTs who try to fixate on the timing because they are the ones who need to prove we should not believe all that evidence that Oswald killed Tippit. To do that, THEY are the ones who have to prove Oswald could not have been at the scene of the crime when Tippit was shot. After 62 years of trying, they have failed miserably.

[Lance Payette]

LNs do not rely on time stamps to prove Oswald shot Tippit. With what is known, we can only approximate that. There is ample proof Oswald killed Tippit. There is the forensic evidence of the discarded shells which were matched to the handgun Oswald had in his possession when arrested to the exclusion of all other firearms in the world. There are also plenty of witnesses who IDed Oswald either as the shooter or the man they saw fleeing the scene. On top of that, Oswald tried to shoot one of the arresting officers when confronted in the theater. Anyone who can look at that evidence and refuse to believe Oswald was the killer is not somebody who wants to know the truth. That is somebody who wants their beliefs to be true.

It is the CTs who try to fixate on the timing because they are the ones who need to prove we should not believe all that evidence that Oswald killed Tippit. To do that, THEY are the ones who have to prove Oswald could not have been at the scene of the crime when Tippit was shot. After 62 years of trying, they have failed miserably.

I basically agree with this. The Tippit murder has really never interested me beyond the level of the broad questions: Where was Oswald going? Why did Tippit stop? Why did Oswald shoot him? All of the "problematical minutiae" has just never really interested me. The notion that this was some conspiratorial frame-up of Oswald just strikes me as so fantastically improbable that I've really never got past the threshold question, "What sense would that have made?" I read a great quote from a presentation that Paul Hoch gave in 1993: "We [CTers] have identified twelve of the three gunmen." I think this is the problem with much conspiracy thinking - there is just "too much" to be plausible. Hence my thread about focusing on plausibility, quality rather than quantity.

[Martin Weidmann]

LNs do not rely on time stamps to prove Oswald shot Tippit. With what is known, we can only approximate that. There is ample proof Oswald killed Tippit. There is the forensic evidence of the discarded shells which were matched to the handgun Oswald had in his possession when arrested to the exclusion of all other firearms in the world. There are also plenty of witnesses who IDed Oswald either as the shooter or the man they saw fleeing the scene. On top of that, Oswald tried to shoot one of the arresting officers when confronted in the theater. Anyone who can look at that evidence and refuse to believe Oswald was the killer is not somebody who wants to know the truth. That is somebody who wants their beliefs to be true.

It is the CTs who try to fixate on the timing because they are the ones who need to prove we should not believe all that evidence that Oswald killed Tippit. To do that, THEY are the ones who have to prove Oswald could not have been at the scene of the crime when Tippit was shot. After 62 years of trying, they have failed miserably.

LNs do not rely on time stamps to prove Oswald shot Tippit.

I didn't say they did. I said they rely on the time stamps for the time that Tippit was killed.

There is ample proof Oswald killed Tippit.

Really? I think you mean to say that there is ample evidence that Oswald killed Tippit. But not all evidence is also proof.

There is the forensic evidence of the discarded shells which were matched to the handgun Oswald had in his possession when arrested to the exclusion of all other firearms in the world.

Too bad there isn't a conclusive chain of evidence to show that the revolver now in evidence is in fact the one that was taken from Oswald when he was arrested.

There are also plenty of witnesses who IDed Oswald either as the shooter or the man they saw fleeing the scene.

Says the guy who, in post after post, claims that he doesn't put much weight on witness testimony. Now suddenly witness testimony is reliable? Hilarious!

On top of that, Oswald tried to shoot one of the arresting officers when confronted in the theater.

There is no evidence for that.

Anyone who can look at that evidence and refuse to believe Oswald was the killer is not somebody who wants to know the truth. That is somebody who wants their beliefs to be true.

I have never excluded Oswald as a possible killer of Tippit, but I look at the actual (lack of) evidence and not the BS that you consider to be solid evidence. Once again, I couldn't care less if Oswald killed Kennedy and/or Tippit or if there was a conspiracy. All I am asking is to see authentic evidence that support what ever conclusion you want me to reach.

It is the CTs who try to fixate on the timing because they are the ones who need to prove we should not believe all that evidence that Oswald killed Tippit

Wrong again. It's not innocence that needs to be proven, it's guilt... so the ball is in your corner and the mere fact that you keep whining about this only tells me that you know that you don't really have the evidence to prove guilt.

To do that, THEY are the ones who have to prove Oswald could not have been at the scene of the crime when Tippit was shot. After 62 years of trying, they have failed miserably. 

If Tippit was killed around 1:10 PM, there is no way that Oswald could have made it to 10th and Patton, at least not by walking there. That's why the LNs are so desperate to rely on the DPD time stamps to push back the time of the shooting as much as they can. The problem, which they will never agree with, is that it doesn't add up with the known facts.

[Martin Weidmann]

I basically agree with this. The Tippit murder has really never interested me beyond the level of the broad questions: Where was Oswald going? Why did Tippit stop? Why did Oswald shoot him? All of the "problematical minutiae" has just never really interested me. The notion that this was some conspiratorial frame-up of Oswald just strikes me as so fantastically improbable that I've really never got past the threshold question, "What sense would that have made?" I read a great quote from a presentation that Paul Hoch gave in 1993: "We [CTers] have identified twelve of the three gunmen." I think this is the problem with much conspiracy thinking - there is just "too much" to be plausible. Hence my thread about focusing on plausibility, quality rather than quantity.

When you are interested in the JFK assassination, you can not ignore the Tippit murder. I have questions similar to yours and a few more of my own; how does it make sense that an alleged killer on the run finds himself walking down a go nowhere street like 10th street? 

The notion that this was some conspiratorial frame-up of Oswald just strikes me as so fantastically improbable that I've really never got past the threshold question, "What sense would that have made?"

Ever considered that part of the conspiracy to have people dismiss it as "fantastically improbable"? The mere fact that it doesn't make sense to you, doesn't mean that it doesn't make sense in a bigger scheme of things?

Do you know about Operation Mincemeat? To most people it wouldn't make sense to drop a dead body dressed up as an English officer in the Mediterranean with a fake letter about an invasion in Greece that went against all logic, but it convinced the Germans nevertheless. So it worked! If you limit you willingness to consider possibilities because you find something improbable you might just selling yourself short. In this crazy world there are far more things possible than anybody can or wants to comprehend.

Athur Conan Doyle had Sherlock Holmes say ""When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." To dismiss a possibility because you find in improbable will never get you to the truth!