SCOTT KAISER SAID:
...a flurry of police officers arrives at the Texas Theater because someone didn't pay for a ticket...
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
This is nothing but total B.S. invented by conspiracy theorists who are desperate to keep Lee Oswald blameless for all November 22 crimes.
The reason the police swarmed the Texas Theater was certainly NOT because Oswald had entered without buying a ticket. The reason, instead, was a perfectly logical and sensible one, all explained by the person who called the police, Julia Postal, in her Warren Commission testimony (the key sentence in Postal's testimony emphasized in bold text by DVP below).
I don't think the police even knew that Oswald had not bought a movie ticket when the police went to the theater.* There's nothing in Mrs. Postal's testimony that would indicate she told the police on the phone that the man who just entered the theater had not purchased a ticket. It's possible that she told the DPD that information, but she certainly doesn't indicate it here....
JULIA POSTAL -- "I told Johnny [Brewer] about the fact that the President had been assassinated. "I don't know if this is the man they want," I said, "in there, but he is running from them for some reason," and I said "I am going to call the police, and you and Butch [Burroughs] go get on each of the exit doors and stay there." So, well, I called the police, and he wanted to know why I thought it was their man, and I said, "Well, I didn't know," and he said, "Well, it fits the description," and I have not---I said I hadn't heard the description. All I know is, "This man is running from them for some reason." And he wanted to know why, and told him because every time the sirens go by he would duck and he wanted to know----well, if he fits the description is what he says. I said, "Let me tell you what he looks like and you take it from there." And explained that he had on this brown sports shirt and I couldn't tell you what design it was, and medium height, ruddy looking to me, and he said, "Thank you," and I called the operator and asked him to look through the little hole and see if he could see anything and told him I had called the police, and what was happening, and he wanted to know if I wanted him to cut the picture off, and I says, "No, let's wait until they get here." So, seemed like I hung up the intercom phone when here all of a sudden, police cars, policemen, plainclothesmen, I never saw so many people in my life. And they raced in, and the next thing I knew, they were carrying----well, that is when I first heard Officer Tippit had been shot because some officer came in the box office and used the phone, said, "I think we have got our man on both accounts." "What two accounts?" And said, "Well, Officer Tippit's," shocked me, because Officer Tippit used to work part time for us years ago. I didn't know him personally."
Complete Testimony Of Julia Postal
* EDIT -- After looking at Mrs. Postal's 12/4/63 affidavit, I see I was incorrect about the "ticket" information. Postal, in her affidavit, says that she definitely DID inform the police that the suspect in the theater had not purchased a ticket (after the policeman on the phone asked her if he had bought a ticket). So I stand corrected on that point.
SANDY LARSEN SAID:
Police cars swarmed in as though they had a positive identification on Oswald, when all they really had was a report of suspicious activity by some guy.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
A policeman had just been gunned down in the general area of the theater in Oak Cliff, and the police get a call very shortly after that shooting from a citizen who told them that a person in the theater (who generally matches the description of Officer Tippit's killer) is "running from them for some reason" and is also ducking the sirens....
And you think the police should have dispatched just--what?--one patrol car to investigate?
That's funny, Sandy.
And, btw, Sandy....do you still think Scott was correct when he repeated this conspiracy myth earlier?....
"...a flurry of police officers arrives at the Texas Theater because someone didn't pay for a ticket."
SANDY LARSEN SAID:
The movie theater is a mile from where Tippit was shot. Not exactly nearby.
Nevertheless....
I would expect the police to send two squad cars with four officers to check it out. One car for out front and the other for out back.
Certainly NOT 15 squad cars and 26 officers! How ridiculous!
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
So, Sandy, are you actually suggesting that those "26 officers" were part of some plot to frame Oswald as of 1:45 PM CST on November 22nd? Is that what you're saying?
To use your own words --- How ridiculous!
IMO / FWIW....
The Dallas Police Department, of course, was certainly not privy to any advanced information as to the whereabouts of Lee Harvey Oswald in the Texas Theater on November 22, 1963. That notion is a tremendously ludicrous one, in my view.
But as far as the mindset of the Dallas Police at the time when many police cars were dispatched to the Texas Theater in Oak Cliff on that Friday in 1963, I think it's quite likely that many of those police officers did make a possible connection in their minds (even if they didn't want to admit it later on) between President Kennedy's assassination and the murder of the policeman.
After all, the police knew the President had been shot just 45 minutes before a police officer was also shot and killed. And the two shootings occurred just a few miles apart. And the DPD also knew that the description they had of the suspect in the Presidential shooting was "similar" to the description they had of the suspect who had just shot the policeman. Here's one of the radio transmissions that was made over the DPD radio system at 1:28 PM Dallas time on November 22:
Dispatcher -- "Notify 1 that officer involved in this shooting, Officer J.D. Tippit, we believe, was pronounced DOA at Methodist. 1:28 p.m."
Deputy Chief of Police N.T. Fisher -- "Is there any indication that it has any connection with this other shooting?"
Dispatcher -- "Well, the descriptions on the suspect are similar and it is possible."
----------
Given these circumstances, Sandy, what would YOU have done if you had been the Dallas Police Department's dispatcher on 11/22/63?
SCOTT KAISER SAID:
Since when has it become a crime to run? That's it! I'm walking everywhere I go now!
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Let me get this straight (from your point-of-view), Scott....
You don't think there was anything at all suspicious or strange about the way Lee Oswald was behaving shortly after the Tippit murder?
For example:
You don't think it was strange for him to be lurking in the entrance to Johnny Brewer's shoe store, with his back to the street as police cars were roaring by on Jefferson Boulevard?
You don't think it was strange for LHO to duck into the theater without buying the cheap ticket (even though he had more than $13 in his pocket at the time)?
You don't think it was odd (or a sign of guilt) for Oswald to be brandishing a revolver when the police approached him in the movie theater?
You don't think it was odd (or a sign of guilt) for Oswald to shout out "This is it!" when he was seized by Officer McDonald?
All of that stuff was just normal everyday activity in the life of Lee Harvey Oswald? Is that it, Scott?
SCOTT KAISER SAID ALL THIS.
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
What exactly did Postal see of Oswald running?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Julia Postal herself never saw Oswald "running" at all. That's true enough. And Johnny Brewer never saw Oswald in the act of physically "running" either. That's true too.
When Postal used the word "running" in her call to police, she wasn't using that word to describe a person who was exhibiting an all-out sprinting or "running" action. She only meant that the person who went into the theater was attempting to evade the police.
CHUCK SCHWARTZ SAID:
Why did LHO, after supposedly killing the President of the United States and a Dallas Police Officer, decide to take in a movie (and not pay for the movie ticket)?
I think his CIA handler told him to go [to] the Texas Theater and then the handler (probably DAP [David Atlee Phillips]) told Dulles where the killer / patsy was located and to have the police arrest him.
Working with Dulles was Charles Cabell (Dulles and Cabell were both fired by JFK for the Bay of Pigs fiasco), whose brother [was] Earle Cabell, the then Mayor of Dallas. It was Earle who told the Dallas Chief of Police to go get the killer -- he is in the theatre.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Good job, Chuck. You have managed to completely ignore the manner in which the police actually became aware of Lee Harvey Oswald's whereabouts in the Texas Theater, and instead you've decided it would be a good idea to just invent a bunch of crap about Dulles, Cabell, and that omnipresent "CIA handler".
Fantasy is a lot more intriguing than Julia Postal and Johnny Brewer, isn't it?
David Von Pein
February 26-27, 2016
