The First Shot

[Tim Nickerson]

Do you think a smear could have caused Tague's facial injury?

A fragment that ricocheted off the curb could have caused Tague's "facial injury".

[John Corbett]

A fragment that ricocheted off the curb could have caused Tague's "facial injury".

The question is how did the fragment end up striking the curb. There are possibilities but no definite answer. I suspect this will remain an unsolved mystery, one of the few involving the JFKA.

[Tim Nickerson]

The question is how did the fragment end up striking the curb. There are possibilities but no definite answer. I suspect this will remain and unsolved mystery, one of the few involving the JFKA.

It would have exited over the top of the windshield and gone on to hit the curb. The two large fragments found in the limo had gone upward upon exiting Kennedy's head. And they went there separate ways laterally. The one that hit the chrome piece was not far off from exiting. If it was a fragment that struck Tague , it would have had to go between 5 and 10 degrees to the left in order to hit Tague. I can't remember the figure and I can't check it out now because I've just been updated to the most recent version of GIMP and I have don't feel like trying to figure out how to use the measuring tool tonight. I'll delete this version tomorrow and download a much older one.

On edit: I just used the measuring tool in the latest version of GIMP. The fragment would have had to "deflect" 6 degrees to the left in order to hit the curb near where Tague was standing

[John Corbett]

It would have exited over the top of the windshield and gone on to hit the curb. The two large fragments found in the limo had gone upward upon exiting Kennedy's head. And they went there separate ways laterally. The one that hit the chrome piece was not far off from exiting. If it was a fragment that struck Tague , it would have had to go between 5 and 10 degrees to the left in order to hit Tague. I can't remember the figure and I can't check it out now because I've just been updated to the most recent version of GIMP and I have don't feel like trying to figure out how to use the measuring tool tonight. I'll delete this version tomorrow and download a much older one.

On edit: I just used the measuring tool in the latest version of GIMP. The fragment would have had to "deflect" 6 degrees to the left in order to hit the curb near where Tague was standing

While that is a possibility, it requires that a fragment exited JFK's head with a low enough velocity to pass over the windshield and arc back down to where it struck the curb in front of Tague but still have enough velocity to cause the debris to injure Tague. I don't know if there is a velocity that would satisfy both those requirements. I tend to lean towards the theory that the first missed shot fragmented and one of the fragments ricocheted down range to strike the curb. Using Google Earth, a line drawn from the sniper's nest to Tague's location would passes just to the right of where the limo was on Elm St. I believe that the first shot struck the pavement to the right of the limo. Posner hypothesized the bullet hit a tree branch and others believe it hit the traffic arm that the limo passed under. We will never know for sure what the cause of Tague's injury was, only that it was likely a lead fragment from one of Oswald's shots.