Dealey Plaza

[george minze]

I wonder, then, why he felt the need to shoot and kill Officer J.D. Tippett at the movie theater. Why do you suppose an "innocent" man would gun down a police officer to make his escape?

That is a great point. Why would he shoot and kill a Dallas cop? Why with no record would he have a revolver with him at work. Why did he leave the depository? People in general are curious. With all the commotion going on he decided just to leave work. I guess he had other things to do...like kill a beat cop and go to a movie...We will never really know will we?

 

[Comrad]

The word diversion comes to mind when thinking about Oswald's movements after the assassination. In my opinion, that's the time to head for the hills and not go home, change, pick a revolver, shoot a LEO and go to the movies. It just screens "hey look over here" and not at the scene of the crime.

 

[PA Reb]

For the Oswald theory to work, a person must believe that the "magic bullet" pictured below hit Kennedy in the right side of his back below the shoulder on a downward trajectory. It the made an internal left and turn and then an internal right hand turn to exit out the front of his throat. It then entered Connally in the right side of his back (still headed downward) exited and then entered his right wrist. After that, it exited his wrist and took another sharp turn to hit, penetrate and stop inside his right thigh. To make it all even more extraordinary, it was found lying on the governor's gurney in Parkland Hospital. This is the only possible scenario that would make the Warren Commission's three shots, two hits, Oswald did it theory work.

Everyone here is a gun enthusiast and I would hope realizes that a bullet traveling that fast and hitting so many hard bones would not wind up looking like the actual bullet below. At the very least, it should cast doubt in your mind in the government's story to at least ask "how could that possibly happen?"

Another poster stated above the fact that Mr.s Kennedy crawled up onto the left rear of the limo to retrieve pieces of the president's skull. Clint Hill, who was the agent assigned to Mrs. Kennedy, stated that he ".....was covered with brains and gore as he ran forward from the left running board of the Secret Service Cadillac....." Also, officer Bobby Hargis, who was riding a motorcycle to the left/rear of the president's limo, said that he "was hit so hard by the brains and debris that he thought he himself might have been shot." To me, it doesn't take a lot of speculation to realize that the final and most fatal shot came from the right front of the limo and could have never been fired from behind. A shot like that coming from behind would have caused everyone forward of it to be splattered.

So again, LHO may have been playing cards that day and he may have gotten lucky with a hit, BUT there were a few, more experienced card sharks playing the game with him - people so cool and ruthless under stress that most of us should be very, very fearful of!

 

[BLACKHAWKNJ]

The July 20th Bomb Plot had no traitors, wasn't even infiltrated by the Gestapo, one thing that appalled those who investigated it was its extent and the number of those involved, the "trial" of the conspirators was a rather hurried affair mean to allay the fears of the German people. And that didn't go over well, the President of the People's Court, Roland Freisler. created a bad impression with his raving and ranting at the defendants. So it is possible to have a successful conspiracy if it involves top notch people who are aware of the risks involved. The biggest-and most valid criticism-of the Warren Commission is that its was not conducted in an adversarial fashion, there was no one to represent Oswald's interests and reputation. And yes, if you believe in the Magic Bullet I'll sell you Sergeant York's M1911.

 

[armenius]

How about this.1)Oswald got the bookstore job in the previous month. 2) The initial parade route did not include going to the location of the killing. 3)The parade route was changed in the last 24 hours prior to his death to carry him to the location of the crime.
Might that be an unbelievable amount of luck for a lone self styled,inexperienced assassin?

 

[amazingflapjack]

The "Investigative Reports" (I think) program on A&E with Bill Curtis presented a 2 or 3 part series on this shooting. It looked at several scenarios-mostly those that were ignored by authorities. It was the most conclusive and un- biased case for everything anti Warren Commission that I have ever seen. There was a lot of good content, but the one portion that convinced me was an interview in present day of a man who was a young sailor at the time, who was standing in front of the grassy knoll when the shot from that location was fired. They had found some film that showed him as he flinched away from the shot that came from behind him and over his shoulder. The film was inconclusive until they applied NASA level technology, which then showed the muzzle flash and the silhouette of the shooter and spotter. Find the program if it is still out there(?). Really incredible.

 

[Snakeshift]

My mother was a high-school student when Kennedy was killed. She was standing on the "Triple Overpass" right above the motorcade. (The Triple Overpass is the one you see the Motorcade passing under on its way to Parkland Hospital) To this day she can recall seeing President Kennedy's head explode backwards, and Jackie scrambling to retrieve the pieces.

She never believed the Warren Commission's findings and has always believed that there was another shooter, most likely behind the Fence on top of the Grassy Knoll. I've lived in Dallas basically my whole life and have been to Dealey Plaza hundreds of times, I'm 99.9% sure the kill shot came from behind the fence on the Grassy Knoll.

Unfortunately I agree that we'll probably never know the whole truth.

 

[davegarage]

My opinion,

All of the shots were fired from the same location. There was a trained shooter at the trigger of the weapon, trained for rapid fire of a single shot rifle.

He lucked out.

All of the bullet fragments recovered from every source point to the one weapon.

He lucked out. And he was a trained marksman.

Lee Harvey Oswald was the only shooter.

Thanks for playing.

 

[davegarage]

No Nut for Nut

Check the background of Oswalt, USMC sharpshooter. Check the guns he qualified on.

Blowback of headwounds can be quite opposite of where the intrusion of the projectile entered.

 

[PA Reb]

"davegarage" - May I ask where you came up with this information? because I'd really like to read it > "All of the bullet fragments recovered from every source point to the one weapon." If you believe in the "magic bullet" theory (one shooter, three shots - two hits, one miss), the bullet that was found or planted on Connally's gurney in the emergency room is the only bullet ever recovered from the crime and could have been fired previously before the crime took place. The bullet that was a miss according to the Warren Commission, hit the curb (which was cut out and replaced by the government afterwards) near the underpass, disintegrated and fragments of it slightly injured a bystander = not recovered. The last shot that hit Kennedy in the head - if it came from behind, it would have hit somewhere or someone in the car forward of the president and been found OR, if from the front, its still buried somewhere in the grass field opposite the knoll = never recovered. Please point me to the evidence because I love the discussion but the discussion should remain factual.

According to Wikipedia and many other sources, here's what the "magic bullet" did > "...a three-centimeter (1.2″)-long copper-jacketed lead-core 6.5-millimeter rifle bullet fired from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository passed through President Kennedy's neck and Governor Connally's chest and wrist and embedded itself in the Governor's thigh. If so, this bullet traversed 15 layers of clothing, 7 layers of skin, and approximately 15 inches of tissue, struck a necktie knot, removed 4 inches of rib, and shattered a radius bone..." All of this was concocted by Arlen Specter who was a Warren Commission staffer at the time and the Commission concluded that Kennedy and Connally were both hit by this same bullet. That was the only way they could make their preconceived theory of one shooter (Oswald) work. I can't for the life of me understand how anyone can believe the bullet I posted above did all that and then looks like it does afterwards.

One thing is for certain, ask a million people and you will get a million different opinions. What I always found difficult to believe is that so many people that weren't there when it happened discount the observations of those that were there - credible witnesses that were told afterwards they made it all up in their heads. How can people not question or discount why the president's body was illegally removed from Texas before the autopsy? Why are the statements made by the physician's in the hospital emergency room discounted as wrong? Why do the x-rays taken in Dallas differ from those released from the "official" D.C. autopsy? Why was this autopsy, probably the most important of all time, performed by people that had no forensic experience? Where did the president's brain disappear to and who made it disappear (it disappeared because it would show the truth)? Who faked the infamous picture of Oswald holding the "proven" murder weapon (how convenient)? Why did Warren refuse to take Ruby to a "safer zone" for the true story when Ruby asked when Warren supposedly wanted to find the truth? Why did the physicians in Dallas describe Kennedy's neck wound as a frontal wound and the doctors in D.C. describe it as an exit wound? Who / why..................................?

I apologize for adding onto all this as it is probably now boring most. I'll stop now!

 

[PA Reb]

Check the background of Oswalt, USMC sharpshooter. Check the guns he qualified on.

Blowback of headwounds can be quite opposite of where the intrusion of the projectile entered.

And that means? Does it mean that because he was awarded sharpshooter status he had the cool and presence of mind to shoot at a sitting president quickly three times in a moving car or does it mean he could hit a paper target at rest at certain distances? I'd bet there's a big difference between "buck fever" and target shooting or attempting the crime of the millennium with a cool head! If he was a marksman, how did he miss when he attempted to kill U.S. Major General Edwin Walker who was sitting still in his home at the time?

 

[THE PILGRIM]

LHO is certainly an enigma. He a commie, no he's on the extreme right , he's really left but acts right(double agent), he shoots at an extreme right guy at his house,
A while back I saw a retired KGB guy on TV who was on the team that watched LHO in Russia. They watched him 24-7 and finally gave up. They were just positive, initially anyway, that he was some kind of US agent. They finally decided that he was harmless. He never had any contact with anybody who knew anything or had access to any sensitive info.
When dummies only have contact with dummies, that's called pooling ignorance.

 

[Old TexMex]

The most difficult thing for most to admit, (or have even heard about) is that Oswald had been in the Soviet Union, and was a communist. Most just think JFK was killed because he was in Texas (Even though JFK carried Texas handily in the election and was quite popular).

 

[Kensterfly]

60 and 100 yards! Even I could make that shot.

Could you make three shots with a bolt action rifle on a moving target at a sharp downward angle within about 8 seconds?

 

[redlevel]

Could you make three shots with a bolt action rifle on a moving target at a sharp downward angle within about 8 seconds?

When I was 24 years old I could have made those shots standing on my head, well within the time constraints. The car was moving only 4-5 mph, and almost directly away from him. I have seen people kill two quail on a covey rise with a bolt action shotgun.

After looking out the adjacent window, and looking up at the window from the street, I would rate the difficulty of the shots from moderately easy to moderately difficult. Really, the difficulty of the shots isn't really that much of a factor to me after seeing what it looked like. Now, you can add in all sorts of factors like buck fever symptoms, but you could do that no matter where the shooter was.

 

[Harleystoo]

First, I would like to comment to the original OP: visiting Dealy Plaza is a humbling experience. Historically significant to us over 50.

But I'm going to chime in here because I have not read any reference to the Warren Commission Report. If you read this with a scholarly mind, you will see that there are many inconsistencies in this official government review. The Commission even contradicts itself and it's finding from one chapter to another.

I do not follow any one conspiracy theory or another. What I do know is that there are more unanswered questions than there are factual evidence.

 

[Comrad]

When I was younger I wasted a lot of time drinking in a bar near a county hospital. Occasionally a patent would wonder off the property and end up in the bar. One I recall spun a wild tale of being a shooter in Dallas that day. Makes me wonder how many committed patients tell a similar tale and if maybe, just maybe, one is telling the truth but is dismissed as being nuts?
Something to think about when you think this secret is too big to keep.

 

[armenius]

Since some have been following True Detective,I recently found out that Woody Harrelson's father was a hit man who died in prison, and he claimed to be one of the team of assassins.

 

[LVSteve]

The "Magic Bullet" was shown to be plausible due to the construction of military Carcano ammo. On the battlefield it had a reputation for penetrating like the dickens leaving remarkably clean wounds, a bit like the 62 gr ammo in the Sandbox that everyone was complaining about.

I'm thinking that military surplus rifle was beat and that's why it was surplus, really how good could it have been.

Comrad, as somebody with a safe full of tatty looking milsurps quite a few of which have excellent bores, I'm afraid the "his rifle was beat" theory does not hold water. Besides, many of the Carcano short rifles as used by LHO surplussed to the US in the 1950s had seen very little use. Production of them started in 1940 and they were many were out of use by 1943. Post WWII Italy was supplied with arms by the US so the Carcanos were sold off.

Even if LHO's rifle were past its best, experience of many milsurp shooters shows that even dreadful looking bores can produce excellent groups. The ingredients are the right ammo, the bedding is reasonable, there is not undue throat erosion and the crown is fair/good. LHO used the correct military spec ammo so was ahead of the game compared with many who have tried US spec 6.5 rounds since then.

 

[jtcarm]

For the Oswald theory to work, a person must believe that the "magic bullet" pictured below hit Kennedy in the right side of his back below the shoulder on a downward trajectory. It the made an internal left and turn and then an internal right hand turn to exit out the front of his throat. It then entered Connally in the right side of his back (still headed downward) exited and then entered his right wrist. After that, it exited his wrist and took another sharp turn to hit, penetrate and stop inside his right thigh. To make it all even more extraordinary, it was found lying on the governor's gurney in Parkland Hospital. This is the only possible scenario that would make the Warren Commission's three shots, two hits, Oswald did it theory work.



Everyone here is a gun enthusiast and I would hope realizes that a bullet traveling that fast and hitting so many hard bones would not wind up looking like the actual bullet below.

Not true. Conally was not sitting directly in front of Kennedy . The bullet did, in fact, travel in a straight line, which is exactly what ball ammo of that type does. It can penetrate an elephants brain with no more deformation than what is pictured.

Sorry to spoil the fun, but yes, it was a lone nut job.

Oh, yeah, as for the marksmanship skill and firearm accuracy: any firearm enthusiast who has visited the 6th floor window can tell you a teenager with a 30-30 lever gun could have made the shots.