JFK ASSASSINATION ARGUMENTS (PART 832)

DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

I've noticed some possible inconsistencies regarding a couple of things Ted Callaway told "With Malice" author Dale K. Myers during Myers' April 9, 1996, interview with Callaway.

On page 303 of "With Malice", Myers quotes Callaway as saying this:

"When I got out of the cab, I didn't hesitate a bit like a lot of guys would. I walked straight to this plainclothes officer [wearing hat and glasses] and I said, 'Here's the officer's pistol.' He said, 'Okay, thank you very much.' After that I walked right back to the [car] lot."

Right after the above quote on page 303, Dale Myers said this:

"[William] Scoggins later testified that he didn't talk to police either, after returning to the scene [of J.D. Tippit's murder]."

But on page 256, we find this quote from Callaway (during the same lengthy interview with Myers on 4/9/96):

"When I saw him jump through that hedge, he had his pistol in a raised position and his left hand going to the pistol. My sidearm was a .45, when I was in the Marine Corps. And I used that same motion before in pushing a loaded magazine up to the handle of a .45. .... And so, when they asked me what kind of gun that he had I told them it was an automatic; on account of that motion."

So, unless I'm missing something here, it sure would appear that Ted Callaway definitely did talk with the police almost immediately after Callaway returned to the J.D. Tippit murder scene on Tenth Street on 11/22/63 (after Callaway and cab driver William Scoggins abandoned their brief search for Tippit's killer in Scoggins' taxicab).

Because if Callaway didn't talk to any police officers after he returned to the murder scene (as is indicated in the first quotes above by Callaway and then Myers), then exactly WHEN did the police ask Callaway the question concerning the type of gun that Tippit's killer was carrying?

If Callaway, as author Dale Myers believes, was the source of the 1:37 PM police radio report put out by Patrolman Howell W. Summers (re: an "automatic pistol" being the gun involved in the shooting of Officer Tippit), I believe that has to mean that Callaway was talking to officers very shortly before 1:37 PM (CST) on November 22nd.

The only other alternative would be that Callaway had told a policeman (probably Howell Summers) about an "automatic" being used in Tippit's murder BEFORE Callaway had left the scene of the crime with Tippit's service revolver in hand.

The above scenario is possible, as indicated by author Dale Myers in his book (in Endnote #326, quoted below):

"[DPD Officer Howell W.] Summers stated [in an interview with Dale Myers on March 28, 1983] that when he arrived at the shooting scene Tippit was still in the street, and the ambulance pulled up about a minute and a half later. Although Summers believed he was the first officer to arrive, it is doubtful that his recollection is accurate. All of the witnesses agree that the ambulance arrived BEFORE the first police officer. Ambulance attendants Butler and Kinsley confirm this fact. .... Apparently, Summers was the first officer to arrive at the scene in A MARKED CAR. Reserve Sergeant Kenneth Croy arrived about a minute before Summers, driving his own vehicle." -- Dale K. Myers; Page 611 of "With Malice: Lee Harvey Oswald And The Murder Of Officer J.D. Tippit" (c.1998)

However, I think it's quite unlikely that Callaway gave the police any information about an "automatic" pistol BEFORE Callaway left the scene to go and look for Tippit's assailant.

Because if that had happened, I'd have to wonder why Summers would have waited approximately 15 to 20 minutes to broadcast his report concerning the "automatic" over the DPD radio, which, as mentioned, is a radio broadcast that didn't occur until 1:37 PM?

And, more importantly, if Callaway had seen and talked to a uniformed police officer at the crime scene just after Tippit was loaded into the ambulance, I find it impossible to believe that Callaway would then have seen fit to snatch Tippit's gun and go chasing after the killer in Scoggins' cab. Nor would Callaway have been permitted to do such a thing if any DPD officers had been right there with Callaway at that time.

I'm not sure what the end result of all this might be. The record is certainly a bit muddled with respect to the precise timing of certain things. But I thought I'd point out a possible inconsistency in Callaway's 1996 remarks to Dale Myers.

But if, in fact, Mr. Callaway was a bit confused when talking to Myers in '96 about the exact timing of his actions on 11/22/63, I'm wondering if it's just possible that Callaway could have also forgotten about giving his wallet to the police after he returned to 10th Street that day (as discussed HERE).

In the final analysis, this post certainly doesn't PROVE anything. But I think it just might demonstrate that the memory of even a very good witness like Ted Callaway isn't completely infallible 33 years later.

Of course, that last sentence isn't exactly the revelation of the ages either, is it? ;)


BUD SAID:

This is good example of how errors gets interjected into the evidence. A witness supplies an erroneous impression because that is how people process information, when they see things it is influenced by other things they've seen in the past, and that get incorporated into the narrative. Often this information is passed on as a factual observation when it is really just a conclusion that satisfied the observer.

Sometimes information is not available with which to compare or correct the original observation, and of course the retards [i.e., various conspiracy theorists on the Internet] reject all attempts to remove any error. The kooks will demand that LN establish how the error was made (and that information rarely exists in the record), so they can insist that the error is actually correct.

Here for instance, Callaway says he drew the conclusion it was an automatic due to his interpretation of Oswald's motions, it was not an identification of the weapon itself by actual observation.

I think the problem is that you can't cut hairs like this with a crude instrument like witness testimony.

Less than one percent of all the information passed from one person to another appears in the record. Callaway was there when Tippit was loaded in the ambulance. Tippit's gun was moved twice, finally being put in the front seat.

Can it be expected that during this time, Callaway didn't speak to anyone? Nobody was talking to each other, information wasn't being passed, discussions taking place, notes compared? Did what some people said influence others recollections?

Couldn't any one of a dozen people who did not see the actual murder but who came out afterwards hear Callaway say the guy had an automatic, thought Callaway sounded authoritative enough to know what he was talking about, and relayed this information to police while Callaway was gone? All kinds of possibilities exist, it's impossible to get a solid picture of who said what to who when.

The kooks take the one percent that is on record, and then proceed to make absolute statements from this. But it is retarded to make absolute statements from such a small and incomplete information pool. You can get general ideas, like the fact that Oswald was fiddling with the gun, but a total and flawless reconstruction is unrealistic.

It was used in the OJ trail, people shown on film talking to one another and arriving at different times was used to exploit discrepancies in their accounts. It's possible that if you asked a person a general outline of their activities that day, who they talked to in chronological order and such, and you actually fine combed the information, questioning people they came in contact with (or better yet, follow them with a hidden camera), you might find all sorts of discrepancies.

You just don't give it a lot of thought because most people are not retarded enough to fine comb the information they hear. And people are pretty sloppy and imprecise how they relate information, because it really doesn't matter most of the time, so that has become their habit of relating information.

It would be best if, say, [Marrion] Baker's affidavit was done in "walk through" fashion, where each step is carefully thought about and worded, instead of the brief narrative they actually are. The retards exploit the wording, but then again, nobody could mistake them for people trying to determine what actually occurred.


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

Good thoughts, Bud. (As always.) Thanks for taking the time to write it all out.

Your post reminded me of something else along similar lines with respect to "incomplete information":

Right after JFK was shot, the initial police radio reports (which were almost certainly based chiefly, but not necessarily exclusively, on the observations of eyewitness Howard Brennan) said that President Kennedy's assassin was "armed with what is thought to be a 30-30 rifle".

That early DPD radio bulletin about the killer being armed with a "30-30 rifle" is exactly the same kind of erroneous initial information that was supplied by one or more persons following the shooting of Officer Tippit, who thought Tippit's killer was carrying an "automatic" pistol.

But when better and more complete information comes to light, then the truth emerges.


BUD SAID:

Possible ways the "30-30" identification could have come about are from Brennan saying he saw a long barrel sticking out, which if true would indicate a hunting rifle (but Brennan missed the scope, so he could miss the stock under the barrel also). A cop hears his description and interprets Brennan's description of the rifle as being a 30-30. The sound or closeness of the shots could have been a factor.

If [Harold] Norman has come out, his "click, boom" description might have led the cop taking the information to conclude this was the action of a 30-30 Winchester (I think "The Rifleman" was popular around this time).

The fact is that in neither case did the information have any impact whatsoever on the search for the respective gunman. I think both the police and the witnesses are more lax when presenting information where they see no real importance.

They arrested Oswald even though he didn't have an automatic, and they would have arrested him leaving the TSBD with his M-C [Mannlicher-Carcano], even though it wasn't a 30-30.

It might be best if they just said "handgun" or "rifle" in the reports, as it isn't likely that witnesses can make actual identifications under these conditions. Much in the same way, Jean Davison once produced where doctors are cautioned against making determinations about "entry" and "exit" in their reports, but to just call them "wounds", to prevent defense lawyers from exploiting any errors that might occur. It is better not to use precise wording when the information does not lend itself to precision.


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

Many conspiracy theorists, however, seem to want to perpetually accept the earliest erroneous reports and treat those early reports as absolute facts -- with the "automatic pistol" error being a prime example of this.

It would appear to be a manifestation of the "Anybody But Oswald" disease that those CTers are afflicted with. Therefore, ANY information that they can utilize to support their false notion that Lee Oswald was innocent of shooting anyone is information they are eager to prop up -- even when the CTer has got to know it is wrong information he is propping up, such as the "automatic" at the Tippit murder scene.


BUD SAID:

That's why I always bring up the "Jean Hill's dog" example, it is an extreme example of the fact that just because a witness said they saw something, this does not make the information they supplied factual.

It's well known that people work from impressions as much as actual observation. We look at something, and most times the mind comes up with something we are satisfied with and moves on. Sometimes these impressions are accurate, sometimes they are not.

Mimes use certain actions because they bring to mind cases where we saw such activity, the rub being that the activity isn't occurring. This is why [Linnie Mae] Randle's impression that the package Oswald carried was heavy should really be given more weight than her brother's observations of the size as Oswald carried it to the TSBD.

How you would carry a light object and one with some weight is considerably different. I'd never carry curtain rods the way Randle said Oswald had the package. Under my arm, cradled in my arms, on my shoulder are possibilities, grabbed by the top is not one of them.

But the main point is Randle likely got the impression of weight from visual clues, like how stiff Oswald kept the arm holding the package, or how the weight affected his gait. These kinds of clues, when they are picked up, are pretty accurate. You wouldn't see someone carry a box of styrofoam and mistake it for books, someone who was carrying a box of books and mistake it as empty. Not all observations should be given the same weight.

Compare this to [Buell Wesley] Frazier's uninterested glance towards Oswald as they walked towards the TSBD. He looks, his mind gets an impression it is satisfied with, and moves on. Just the kind of observation you would expect to have the most error.


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

Deep down, the conspiracy promoters have certainly got to know that the person who shot and killed J.D. Tippit did NOT use an automatic weapon. And there are many things that prove that Tippit's slayer was using a non-automatic revolver (besides even the best physical evidence of the bullet shells themselves) -- such as the fact that multiple witnesses saw the killer (Oswald) dumping shell casings out of his gun BY HAND (something that is not required at all if an automatic pistol was being used).

Plus, there's the fact that all of the spent shells were found AT THE CORNER of Tenth and Patton, indicating that an automatic was certainly NOT the murder weapon, because if the killer had shot Tippit with an automatic, then all of the spent cartridge cases would have been RIGHT NEXT TO TIPPIT'S PATROL CAR, instead of up the street in the yard of Barbara and Virginia Davis.

Do CTers want to pretend that somebody shot Tippit with an automatic (with the shells being automatically ejected from the gun near Tippit's police car), and then the killer picked up the shells and scattered them in the Davises' yard as he fled? That's nuts.

Or do CTers want to pretend that all of the witnesses were wrong when they all said they saw the gunman shoot Tippit while the killer was standing RIGHT NEXT TO THE POLICE CAR?

So, given the totality of evidence in the case, we can realistically see that the conspiracists who continue to believe that an "automatic" killed Tippit have nowhere to go with their theories. Such theories reside only in their imaginations.

David Von Pein
January 9, 2010