The Sawyer Memo and a Winchester

[Benjamin Cole]

See memo below---

1. Part of the JFKA lore is that a JFKA suspect description went out on Dallas PD radio within moments of the assassination, that was identical to intel-state descriptions of LHO. This suggests the intel-state "planted" the radio-identification, as part of the larger Deep State JFKA plot.

But this memo below (dated 1/9/64) reports that DPD Inspector Sawyer (a senior DPD official) was told by a TSBD witness that he (the witness) had seen a white male approximately 30, slender, 5' 10," 165 "run" from the TSBD carrying a 30-30 or Winchester-type rifle, in the aftermath of the JFKA.
 
Sawyer called in the info and description to DPD dispatch--if this memo is correct, then Sawyer, and not the Deep State, was the source of the DPD radio LHO-ID.

Sawyer failed to get the witness' name and contact info, which seems like an improbable lapse, but perhaps Sawyer was justifiably concerned there might be armed suspects about yet who might inflict additional harm, and thought it best to secure the area first, and collect witnesses later.

2. A Winchester-type rifle is also what eyewitness Amos Euins somewhat hesitantly described as being fired from the TSBD6 sniper's nest.

3. Of course, this Sawyer report strains common sense in some regards---what assassin, in the near-immediate aftermath of the JFKA, would "run" from the TSBD, in public view, while obviously carrying a rifle?

4. Yet, sometimes ascribing logic to human behavior is not always judicious. People blunder, panic, make poor plans. And even the best laid plans of mice and men....perhaps the departing assassin, in his excitement, forgot to wear a trench-coat, but did not want to leave a traceable rifle inside the TSBD. The apparent assassin was reduced to making a run for it. Well, I have seen many a plan collapse too. Remember, whoever perped the JFKA had only three days to get ready, after the motorcade route was published on Nov. 19.

4. The date of the Sawyer memo is 1/9/64---that leans to making it a "real" memo, not some baloney ginned up for the record. That is to say, in January of 1964 the JFKA CT community hardly existed, and tracing the LHO DPD radio description back to the Deep State was not being done. There was no need in early 1964 to refute the "Deep State planted the LHO description" narrative.

I have reasonable doubts that a lone gunsel armed with a single shot per bolt action rifle accomplished the JFKA. Looks to me like Gov. JBC was shot ~Z-295. The WC LN narrative stretches credulity on several points, in its way to becoming terra incognita on a map of truth.

Interesting prospect: one JFKA sniper was armed with a Winchester, while LHO fired the M-C.

[Lance Payette]

I see you started a thread about the Sawyer memo at the Ed Forum a year ago, which turned into an extended discussion: https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/31442-alan-fords-sawyer-memo/.

I think Pat Speer's take on the memo is probably correct:

It's clear to me that Sawyer conflated what he heard from a number of witnesses. The general description matches Brennan's first day statements. The Winchester comes from Euins' recollection of the sounds made by the rifle. These witnesses were filmed and photographed talking to the police, moreover. Long story short, the search for a mystery witness based upon some inconsistencies is folly, much as the reliance upon Holmes' delayed recollection Oswald said he was upstairs (something seized upon by the Bugliosi crowd) is folly.

Larry Hancock noted that it would be very odd for a witness to describe the age, height and weight but say absolutely nothing about the clothing.

The only way anyone would legitimately describe a rifle as a Winchester would be by seeing a lever action. If Euins described it as a Winchester based on the sound, that would be completely irrelevant.

So now we have an assassination plot with two gunman in the TSBD and their weapons of choice are a Mannlicher-Carcano and a Winchester lever-action? And they are both white males of almost exactly the same age and size? And one leaves the rifle and runs down the stairwell while the other runs out the back entrance carrying his rifle in full view? Weird conspiracy.

Where did the 30-30 bullets go? Maybe the Winchester guy panicked and ran without firing?

As Jonathan Cohen noted on the Ed Forum thread, isn't this the standard CT modus operandi - i.e., take an obscure document citing "an unidentified individual" that no one has ever regarded as being of particular significance and declare it the "smoking gun" that "proves a conspiracy"?

[Benjamin Cole]

LP--

I thought Speer made a very large leap and assumption: That DPD Inspector Sawyer, a veteran officer, promoted to Inspector (and the DPD had civil service exams for hiring and promotion), made fundamental errors in calling in a lone witness statement.

I dismiss Speer's concerns as sheer speculation, lacking gravitas. 

Hancock is correct as far as he goes. Yes, the eyewitness reporting to Sawyer should have noted the clothes of the man running out of the TSBD carrying a rifle. A cop might have, knowing that is ID-101. An ordinary witness might have seen the rifle and more or less focused on that.

That the Sawyer witness description roughly matched LHO, or any white-ish male between 5'6" and 6' in those non-fatso is normal days, does not worry me. So LHO's confederate was roughly same height and build.

You ask a tougher question, "So where did the Winchester slugs (likely .308) go?"

I will say this: Four DPD cops and detectives signed statements that they found a steel-jacketed slug at the Walker residence. When the FBI got the slug, it turned into a copper-jacketed slug, without the markings the DPD officers said they put on the slug.

CE-399's history is also curious.

The FBI may have leaned on the LN narrative a little too hard at times.

[Mark Ulrik]

I will say this: Four DPD cops and detectives signed statements that they found a steel-jacketed slug at the Walker residence. When the FBI got the slug, it turned into a copper-jacketed slug, without the markings the DPD officers said they put on the slug.

Like a dog with a bone!

Steve Roe did an excellent piece dealing with the somewhat-less-than-reasonable doubts expressed by you and Tom Gram about the Walker bullet.

Still Stuck on Steel (2023) by Steve Roe

[Lance Payette]

LP--

I thought Speer made a very large leap and assumption: That DPD Inspector Sawyer, a veteran officer, promoted to Inspector (and the DPD had civil service exams for hiring and promotion), made fundamental errors in calling in a lone witness statement.

I dismiss Speer's concerns as sheer speculation, lacking gravitas. 

Hancock is correct as far as he goes. Yes, the eyewitness reporting to Sawyer should have noted the clothes of the man running out of the TSBD carrying a rifle. A cop might have, knowing that is ID-101. An ordinary witness might have seen the rifle and more or less focused on that.

That the Sawyer witness description roughly matched LHO, or any white-ish male between 5'6" and 6' in those non-fatso is normal days, does not worry me. So LHO's confederate was roughly same height and build.

You ask a tougher question, "So where did the Winchester slugs (likely .308) go?"

I will say this: Four DPD cops and detectives signed statements that they found a steel-jacketed slug at the Walker residence. When the FBI got the slug, it turned into a copper-jacketed slug, without the markings the DPD officers said they put on the slug.

CE-399's history is also curious.

The FBI may have leaned on the LN narrative a little too hard at times.

But wait: We don't know what Sawyer really said, do we? What you have posted is a January 1964 memo describing a telephone call from Malley to Shanklin describing what Batchelor told Drain about what Sawyer supposedly said an "unidentified individual" had told him.

In Sawyer's WC testimony, he said nothing about being told about a man running out the back with a rifle and seemed pretty vague and confused as to who had told him what: https://aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh6/pdf/WH6_Sawyer.pdf.

So now, even though Belin asked Sawyer several open-ended questions ("Anything else you remember?") we must build into the equation that the WC "got to Sawyer" and made sure he didn't mention the man running out the back with a rifle.

[Benjamin Cole]

MU-

I stand by my statement.

The slug found in the Walker residence was described, in contemporary same-day official reports, as "steel jacketed" by two DPD officers and two DPD detectives, who recovered the bullet themselves and who were attending the most high-profile assassination attempt in Texas history (Walker being a national figure at that time).

This is a photo of CE-573 (see below), which the WC says the FBI says is the true Walker bullet recovered at the April crime scene, but which is the most obviously copper-jacketed bullet in all police annals.

I am an amateur plinker at best, and I even can tell instantly that CE-573 is a copper-jacketed slug, and almost certainly not the one recovered at the Walker residence.

I have reasonable doubts four DPD'ers would ID the CE-573 as a "steel-jacketed" slug. Cops know guns & ammo, and there were two detectives on the scene,

Last I heard, Steve Roe told the world he had dramatically uncovered an actual witness to the slug found in the Walker residence, thus incurring some rumors Roe was perhaps losing his marbles a bit. 

Did Roe ever produce his witness?

[Benjamin Cole]

LP--

I guess you missed this:



Sawyer confirmed to the WC the contents of the memo, and even answered why there was no clothing description. 

How did you miss such an obvious part of the WC testimony?