JFK Assassination Forum

    The Tiger team aside, the flavor of a "Little Caesars" pizza is only superior to the box it comes in. Going way back to when Johnny Carson was the only late night programming on TV, "Little Caesars" was the only large pizza chain in So Cal making/delivering pizzas. And they dominated buying TV add time during the Carson Show. Very business smart, but the product being produced was horrible. These "entrepreneur's" that were pioneers of the "Franchise" concept made out like bandits. The quality of the product they offered really didn't matter.   

I don't think I've ever had a Little Caesar's pizza so I can't comment. I've just never lived near one. Domino's used to have the same well deserved reputation for bad pizza but they completely changed their recipe and now they have some of the best pizza of all the chains. Dominos had been founded by Tom Monaghan, who also owned the Tigers. He bought the club in 1983 and sold it to his pizza competitor Mr. I in 1992.

   Your "So what?" is non responsive. You also are using this often. And on top of all of this, YOU initiated the topic under discussion. Think things through and have an opinion. "So what?" is not an opinion. It is on the level of "Whatever".  With respect to the "gunpowder smell", you know the direction the wind was blowing at 12:30 PM on 11/22/63. Your mentioning "drift" only reinforces my "think things through" advice.

I do have an opinion and I stated it clearly. The smell of gunpowder is not an indication of where the smell originated. As for the drift, you don't think the gunpowder residue in the air is going to drift?

The fact that JFK's head at "Z-124" was much harder for Oswald to hit than at your beloved Z-160 or [fill in the blank] didn't cause JFK, Jackie, Connally, Nellie, and Kellerman to quickly turn their heads between Z-140 and Z-149, but the sounds of Oswald's (missing-everything) shot at "Z-124" did, as corroborated by the movements of Bennett, Hickey, and Willis during that same "window," and the fact that Elsie Dorman was so startled by Oswald's Carcano's being fired 35 feet away from her at "Z-124" and at approximately Z-222 that it caused her to inadvertently stop filming for about three seconds in both instances.


These guys?

GROK's a part of the X / Twitter platform, which the last time I checked was still owned by Trump's buddy, Elon Musk.

AI draws its information from other sources and since you had been referring to Roselle and Scearce, I assumed it was quoting them. If that is not the case, that's my mistake. If this is entirely AI, I have even less confidence in it than if it had taken its conclusion from the two guys whose study you had been referring to. I'm not at all surprised AI seems to have mastered the art of BS.

TG-

I don't buy it.

A small fragment of soft lead escaped from the jacketed slug, at moment of impact on JFK's skull, and then struck the curb 25 feet from Tague's feet, and that with enough force (remember, soft lead, that tends to compress when striking an object) to shoot up concrete with enough force to cause a cut on Tague's cheek?

Even so, we still have the problem that JFK's head was in between the bullet strike on his skull and the Tague curb area.

The bullet struck the lower right rear portion of the JFK's skull, see WC illustration.

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One could also posit that someone with a handgun, such as a snub-nose .38, fired a shot at the limo and missed. Handguns use non-jacketed bullets, and this would result in a lead smear on the curb.

That would also account for the widely observed smoke-and-bang show on the GK. And the tell-tale smell of gunsmoke in Dealey Plaza in the immediate aftermath of the JFKA...with the wind blowing towards the TSBD from the Third Street overpass, thus ruling out LHO's M-L as the source of that gunsmoke.

AI:

Dallas Police Officer Joe Marshall Smith was one of several witnesses and officers who reported signs of gunfire, including the odor of smoke, near the grassy knoll on November 22, 1963.

According to his testimony and subsequent accounts, Smith's experience included the following:

Response to the Area: Immediately after the shots were fired, Officer Smith ran from his position on the Triple Underpass towards the parking lot area behind the picket fence on the grassy knoll.

Smell of Gunsmoke: Smith reported smelling a distinctive odor of "gunsmoke cordite" in the area behind the fence.

The Imposter Incident: While investigating, Smith reported confronting a man in the area who appeared to be hiding or acting suspiciously behind the fence. When Smith approached and asked what he was doing, the man showed him Secret Service identification, though it was later noted that all authorized Secret Service agents were believed to be in the motorcade.

Testimony Limitations: In his official Warren Commission testimony, Smith noted that he didn't know exactly where the shots came from due to the echo effect in the area, but his instincts led him to the area behind the concrete structure on the knoll.

Smith was among a group of people, including railway workers, who reported seeing a flash of light, hearing a loud report, or seeing a puff of smoke near the picket fence on the knoll.

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Smith, a police officer and war vet, knew what gunsmoke smelled like.

I should probably do a separate post on this.

That Marxist LHO had some help?

This is the WC visualization of the JFK head shot. Did the slug, or a fragment thereof, then strike the curb near the feet of Tague?

ME: Is it plausible that the bullet that hit JFK in the back of the head fragmented and that a piece of it struck the curb near James Tague?

GROK: Yes, it is plausible—both ballistically and based on the physical evidence—that the bullet striking JFK in the back of the head fragmented extensively, with a small piece (or pieces) continuing forward to strike the curb near James Tague and send concrete debris into his face. This is not the Warren Commission's official conclusion, but it aligns with known facts about the ammunition, wound ballistics, trajectories, and curb damage. Here's why, based on the documented evidence.

The fatal head shot (Zapruder frame 313, the third shot per the Warren Commission) was fired from a 6.5×52mm Mannlicher-Carcano full-metal-jacketed (FMJ) bullet from the Texas School Book Depository sixth-floor window. At that range (~265 feet / ~90 yards from the rifle), the bullet struck the rear of JFK's skull, fragmented dramatically on impact with bone, and caused the massive head wound seen in the Zapruder film, autopsy, and ballistics tests.

Two large fragments from this bullet were recovered in the front of the limousine (CE 567, the nose portion ~44.6 grains; CE 569, the base portion ~21 grains). These were matched ballistically to Oswald's rifle.

Roughly 90+ grains of the original ~160-grain bullet were unaccounted for (including smaller lead particles in the car and JFK's brain). Wound-ballistics experts, including Larry Sturdivan (who consulted for the Warren Commission and HSCA), noted that much of this missing mass sprayed forward after the skull impact.

At the moment of the head shot, the presidential limousine was on Elm Street, with the triple underpass (and Tague's position on the south curb/sidewalk nearby) further ahead and downrange. Tague was standing ~178 yards from the sniper's window overall, meaning the forward distance a fragment would need to travel from JFK's head to the curb mark was on the order of ~80–90 yards. One small fragment from the head shot already cracked the limousine windshield from the inside (a very short distance), demonstrating the forward spray of debris.

The curb mark itself (a fresh chip/scar on the south curb of Elm Street near the underpass, about 20–25 feet from Tague) showed:

A lead smear/residue consistent with the lead core of the assassination ammunition (per FBI spectrographic analysis after the curb section was removed in 1964).

No embedded copper jacket material.

This is exactly what you'd expect from a fragmented bullet's lead core (as from the head shot) rather than an intact FMJ bullet glancing off (as the Warren Commission attributed to the "missed" first shot). An intact Carcano bullet would likely have left copper traces.

Tague described the impact as a sting on his right cheek from flying concrete/debris during the shooting sequence. He initially linked it to the second or third shot (later pressed to say the second). Witnesses and police noted the fresh curb damage immediately after.

Ballistics analyses have explicitly considered this scenario plausible. For example:

Sturdivan and others observed that the missing head-bullet mass cleared the windshield area and continued in the general direction of Tague.
Forward trajectory extensions from the head wound align with the curb location.

A small, low-velocity lead fragment (with reduced but still sufficient energy after skull impact) could easily produce the minor, superficial injury and curb chip observed—far more consistent than some convoluted ricochet paths proposed for the "missed" first shot.

The Warren Commission concluded the curb strike came from the first (missed) shot to account for three spent cartridges, the two major wounds (neck + head), and Tague's injury—leading to the single-bullet theory for the neck/Connally wounds. That remains the official lone-gunman narrative. However, nothing in the ballistics, fragment recovery, curb metallurgy, or trajectories rules out a head-shot fragment as the source. In fact, the evidence (especially the lead-only residue and forward spray) fits it well. Some detailed forensic reviews treat it as a reasonable alternative explanation for the "missing" bullet mass and Tague's wound.

In short: the Carcano bullet did fragment on the head shot, fragments did travel forward, and the curb damage/Tague injury is consistent with one reaching that spot. It is physically and forensically plausible, even if it wasn't the Commission's preferred account.