WALT SAID:
>>> "You left out the last part of Mrs Reid's statement. Did you "forget" that she added the disqualifier..."but maybe he wasn't hit". What would Oswald think when Mrs. Reid said that??" <<<
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Although I can't read Oswald's mind, I have a feeling that Oz probably was quite amused when he heard those words from Mrs. Reid. And (if I were to wager on it) he probably exhibited the trademark Oswald smirk after he passed by Reid and heard her say "maybe they didn't hit him" (which is the exact quote, per Mrs. Reid's own testimony [at 3 H 274], vs. the version Walt offered, which was close).
>>> "On one hand you say Oswald fled in panic, but then when Baker arrives with a gun aimed at Oswald, he shows no sign of fear." <<<
And this lack of any "sign of fear" is, IMO, as I've said many times previously, more indicative of Oswald's GUILT (given the circumstances of having a cop coming at him with a gun) vs. an indication of innocence on Oz's part.
A truly innocent person, given those circumstances, IS probably going to show some signs of fear, by asking (at the least) "What's going on?" or "What did I do?"
But Oswald didn't need to ask anything like that, because he already KNEW what was "going on", and he also HAD to have known that the place would be crawling with cops within minutes (or seconds) of the shooting. And, of course, it was.
It's kind of funny, too, because if Officer Marrion Baker had taken some additional time to fully assess Oswald's very calm and cool demeanor (after being confronted by a hurried policeman with his gun out), perhaps he, too, on his own, might have added things up a little differently concerning the man he stopped in the lunchroom that Friday in the Book Depository.
But Baker, of course, was in a very big hurry to get to the roof of the building (from where he thought he might have a good chance to trap the killer, who certainly hadn't had much time to get away by 12:31 or 12:32 PM), and therefore, in his haste, Baker inadvertently allowed President Kennedy's real murderer to go free after encountering him on the second floor just a minute or two after JFK was slain.
Nobody can possibly place any blame on Officer M.L. Baker though. He was doing his job that day as best he knew how. And he had no reason (on the surface) to suspect Lee Harvey Oswald of any wrong-doing as of 12:31 or 12:32 on November 22.
After Roy Truly cleared Oswald as merely another of the many people who worked in the Depository, it isn't surprising at all that Baker let LHO go immediately.
But I've often wondered if Marrion L. Baker, when he reflects back on that day, ever places some degree of blame on himself for not capturing the President's murderer in that lunchroom. For if Baker had done that, J.D. Tippit's life would have been spared.
But hindsight--as always--is 20/20.
David Von Pein
February 2008
LINK TO ORIGINAL POST (FEBRUARY 25, 2008)
RANDOM PHOTO FROM
THE KENNEDY GALLERY:
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