Users Currently Browsing This Topic:
0 Members

Author Topic: Jack Tatum...Another Useful Witness?  (Read 2075 times)

Offline Jerry Freeman

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 3725
Jack Tatum...Another Useful Witness?
« on: November 19, 2019, 02:50:50 PM »
Advertisement
From the chronicles of Dale Myers----
Quote
On March 3, 1983, Jack Tatum told how he came to be on Tenth Street and witnessed Officer J.D. Tippit’s encounter with Oswald:
 “I lived in Oak Cliff at the time. It was before Christmas, and I had gone into a jewelry store to purchase some gifts for my wife – a watch and a ring – and was coming back around the corner to go to another shop there on Jefferson, and just happened by and saw the police officer stopping this individual…” [1]
 Asked where the jewelry store was located, Tatum said, “It was Gordon’s Jewelry, in that same block that I was in, I was just making a – I hooked a left and turned and come back and hooked another right. We heard the news of the president being shot over the television that was in the jewelry store at the time.” [2]
Tatum didn’t explain at the time why he would have needed to cut through the adjoining residential neighborhood to get to “another shop on Jefferson” (couldn’t he just make a U-turn on the wide boulevard?). I assumed at the time that the shop that Tatum was referring to was located somewhere west of the Jefferson and Denver intersection. An explanation for his detour through the residential area adjoining Jefferson Boulevard eventually surfaced three years later. In the spring of 1986, Katie A. Pearson, a 27-year-old researcher at London Weekend Television, contacted both Jack Ray Tatum and former House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) investigator John Moriarty, Jr., and questioned them as part of the pre-production for the television program, “On Trial: Lee Harvey Oswald,” which was subsequently broadcast in the U.S. on Showtime on November 21-22, 1986. During a May 13, 1986, interview, Tatum told Pearson that on the day of the assassination, he had some hours owed him and was allowed to take the afternoon off. “My boss said why [don’t] I go downtown to photograph Kennedy? As I was going downtown, there was an awful lot of crowds and cars and I decided not to go. So, I went to Oak Cliff, where I lived at the time. I stopped at Gordon’s Jewelers on Jefferson and purchased a watch and ring on [layaway] for my wife. While I was in the store, there was a bulletin come over the TV in the jeweler’s store saying Kennedy had been shot. I was planning to go from there to a friend of mine who owned a bar, Hank Reiser, at the Mardi Gras.” [3]
The bar owner, Harold F. “Hank” Reiser, age 50, lived at 311 E. 12th, Apt. 112, just around the corner from the bar, with his wife, “Honey”. [4]
 Tatum told Pearson that he had to make a detour to get to the bar, which was also on Jefferson, but some distance west. Instead of making a U-turn on Jefferson, he had to turn left on Denver and back track to avoid a central island. [5] In a diagram provided to Pearson, Tatum located Gordon’s Jewelry store in the 500 block of east Jefferson Boulevard, just west of Denver and Club Mardi Gras on E. Jefferson, just east of Patton. [6] However, Tatum’s 1986 recollection was in error. The only Gordon’s Quality Jewelry store in Oak Cliff in 1963 was actually located at 330 W. Jefferson Blvd., between Bishop and Madison – seven blocks west of the location specified by Tatum.
Tatum’s recalled location for Club Mardi Gras was also in error. The bar was actually located at 308 E. Jefferson Blvd. near Storey – two blocks west of the location that Tatum also identified in the diagram.Given the true locations of the two establishments, Tatum’s explanation of how he ended up on Tenth Street doesn’t seem to ring true.
One thing that I am curious about is if Tatum was a "photographer" possessing camera loaded with film in hand...why didn't he take any pictures of the Tippit saga? I mean gee..he was there and major stuff was ensuing!
Now, I am not suggesting that shooting pictures of the shooting should have been the first thing on someone's mind. But still..somewhere along the line the photographic instinct should have come impulsively at some time.
Tatum was a photographer for Baylor Hospital. [I didn't know that hospitals retained photographers on their staff]
Tatum's "boss" sent him out to take pictures...Tatum came back empty handed.
Prime witness Jack Tatum was not called to testify before the Warren Commission. Very little is mentioned about him in the HSCA Report [after investigators went to some length to track him down]~
Mentioned in another post...from Jack Tatum's affidavit--  http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/testimony/tatum.htm
   
Quote
I was driving XXXX north on Denver and stopped at 10th St. when I first saw the squad car and men walking on the sidewalk near the squad car. .................. Both the squad car and this young white male were coming in my direction(East on 10th Street). At the time I was just approaching the squad car, I noticed this young white male with both hands in the pockets of his zippered jacket leaning over the passenger side of the squad car. This young white male was looking into the squad car from the passenger side
     I heard three shots in rapid (illegible)I went right through the intersection, stopped my car and turned to look back. I then saw the officer lying on the street and saw this young white man standing near the front of the squad car. Next. this man with a gun in his hand ran toward the back of the squad car, but instead of running away he stepped into the street and shot the police officer who was lying in the street.
If accurate ...this statement demonstrates that the killer went entirely out of his way to execute the cop who was already down and apparently sufficiently wounded as to be any threat to escape.
Also...who exactly were these men that he said were walking on the sidewalk and whatever happened to them? 

JFK Assassination Forum

Jack Tatum...Another Useful Witness?
« on: November 19, 2019, 02:50:50 PM »


Online Richard Smith

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4993
Re: Jack Tatum...Another Useful Witness?
« Reply #1 on: November 19, 2019, 04:18:15 PM »

   If accurate ...this statement demonstrates that the killer went entirely out of his way to execute the cop who was already down and apparently sufficiently wounded as to be any threat to escape.
 

What do you mean by "entirely out of his way?"  How long do you think it would take for the killer (i.e. Oswald) to finish Tippit off?  More than 5 seconds?  How would the killer know whether the Tippit was "sufficiently wounded" as to be any further threat to him?  Why take that chance when a momentary pause would ensure that he was dead?  What you claim is just subjective, baseless opinion in a desperate attempt to reach a predetermined conclusion.  Even if there were any way to validate your conjectures, it is entirely possible that a man who had just assassinated the president and was in the act of murdering a police officer might act in ways that are not entirely predictable.  To cling to such nonsense while ignoring that numerous witnesses - including ironically the very one you are citing here - put Oswald at the scene with a gun in his hand is laughable.  Imagine using a witness that claims he saw Oswald commit this act to raise doubt that it was Oswald because the killer (i.e. Oswald) momentarily paused to administer a coup de grâce.   It's surreal in its twisted form of logic.

Offline Jerry Freeman

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 3725
Re: Jack Tatum...Another Useful Witness?
« Reply #2 on: November 19, 2019, 06:02:27 PM »
  How long do you think it would take for the killer (i.e. Oswald) to finish Tippit off?  More than 5 seconds?  How would the killer know whether the Tippit was "sufficiently wounded" as to be any further threat to him?  Why take that chance when a momentary pause would ensure that he was dead?  What you claim is just subjective, baseless opinion in a desperate attempt to reach a predetermined conclusion.  Even if there were any way to validate your conjectures, it is entirely possible that a man who had just assassinated the president and was in the act of murdering a police officer might act in ways that are not entirely predictable.  To cling to such nonsense while ignoring that numerous witnesses - including ironically the very one you are citing here - put Oswald at the scene with a gun in his hand is laughable.  Imagine using a witness that claims he saw Oswald commit this act to raise doubt that it was Oswald because the killer (i.e. Oswald) momentarily paused to administer a coup de grâce.   It's surreal in its twisted form of logic.
Uhh yeah Smith. Whatever. If you would open your eyes you would see what Tatum said the gunman did...
Quote
instead of running away he stepped into the street and shot the police officer who was lying in the street.
How long did it take you to recall the same crappy dialog you have been using for the last 2 years? "Laughable" "Nonsense""Twisted"
Quote
it is entirely possible that a man who had just assassinated the president and was in the act of murdering a police officer might act in ways that are not entirely predictable.
If you are saying you have not changed your mind about Oswald the Assassin ....I realize that and have for two years that nothing will change it. 
Quote
surreal in its twisted form of logic.
That come from your backside right?
So go sniff some more ODIA troll glue.

JFK Assassination Forum

Re: Jack Tatum...Another Useful Witness?
« Reply #2 on: November 19, 2019, 06:02:27 PM »


Offline Walt Cakebread

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 7322
Re: Jack Tatum...Another Useful Witness?
« Reply #3 on: November 20, 2019, 05:31:39 PM »
From the chronicles of Dale Myers----One thing that I am curious about is if Tatum was a "photographer" possessing camera loaded with film in hand...why didn't he take any pictures of the Tippit saga? I mean gee..he was there and major stuff was ensuing!
Now, I am not suggesting that shooting pictures of the shooting should have been the first thing on someone's mind. But still..somewhere along the line the photographic instinct should have come impulsively at some time.
Tatum was a photographer for Baylor Hospital. [I didn't know that hospitals retained photographers on their staff]
Tatum's "boss" sent him out to take pictures...Tatum came back empty handed.
Prime witness Jack Tatum was not called to testify before the Warren Commission. Very little is mentioned about him in the HSCA Report [after investigators went to some length to track him down]~
Mentioned in another post...from Jack Tatum's affidavit--  http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/testimony/tatum.htm
   If accurate ...this statement demonstrates that the killer went entirely out of his way to execute the cop who was already down and apparently sufficiently wounded as to be any threat to escape.
Also...who exactly were these men that he said were walking on the sidewalk and whatever happened to them?

Tatum's statement from his affidavit doesn't make sense.

"I then saw the officer lying on the street and saw this young white man standing near the front of the squad car. Next. this man with a gun in his hand ran toward the back of the squad car, but instead of running away he stepped into the street and shot the police officer who was lying in the street."

Tippit's body was lying on the street near the left FRONT wheel with his head toward the east....( near the front bumper of the squad car) Tatum apparently didn't even know this basic fact........And Dom Benavides ( nor Markham) said nothing about Tippit's killer going around the rear of the car and shooting Tippit as he lay on the street.


 
« Last Edit: November 20, 2019, 05:45:46 PM by Walt Cakebread »