RON BULMAN SAID:
Two Oswalds in the Texas Theater....
James Douglass in "JFK and The Unspeakable" presented a pretty compelling case for such.
Butch Burroughs, the concession stand operator, and person left in charge of operations at the time, "startled me in his interview by saying he saw a second arrest occur in the Texas Theater, only three or four minutes later. Burroughs said the second man looked almost like Oswald, like they were brothers or something." [Pg. 292.]
Burroughs saw the second Oswald placed under arrest and handcuffed...taken out the back of the theater.
Bernie Haire of Bernie's Hobby House, two doors east of the theater, went outside when he saw police cars congregating. When he couldn't see what was happening because of the crowd, he went to the alley out back. It too was full of police cars "stopped outside the rear door and witnessed what he thought for decades was the arrest of Oswald" .... "brought a young white man out...put him in a police car and drove off."
Told in 1987 Oswald had been taken out the front entrance, he was shocked.
[...]
Some members of the Dallas Police Department knew two Oswalds were arrested, they participated in the second arrest. They knew and participated in a conspiracy to cover it up with their silence.
JOHN KOZLOWSKI SAID:
I’m glad you brought this up. The arrest out of the back door is one of the parts of the Oswald tale that really interests me. Hoping some of the experts here can explain what they know about the arrest around back.
CORY SANTOS SAID:
Yes, interesting. I know DVP wants to explain his theory?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
I think it's possible that some of the confusion about the alleged "two arrests" could have been initially sparked by the fact that Johnny Brewer was briefly held at gunpoint as a suspect by the police at the back of the theater. And Brewer, like Oswald, was a slender white male in his 20s.
I can't find anything in the records that indicates whether or not Brewer was actually dragged outside into the alley behind the theater when he was held at gunpoint....and, of course, Brewer wasn't actually placed into a police car....but if someone did see the incident between the police and Johnny Brewer at the back of the theater, this could certainly have elevated the confusion of any witnesses as to how many people were being detained by the police at the theater.
JOHNNY BREWER (Warren Commission Testimony) -- "I heard a noise outside, and I opened the door, and the alley, I guess it was filled with police cars and policemen were on the fire exits and stacked around the alley, and they grabbed me, a couple of them, and held and searched me and asked me what I was doing there, and I told them that there was a guy in the theatre that I was suspicious of, and he asked me if he was still there."
JOHNNY BREWER (1986 Mock Trial Testimony) --
"...a gun was held on me."
DENIS MORISSETTE SAID:
Excellent!
JIM HARGROVE SAID THIS.
JIM HARGROVE ALSO SAID:
You guys forgot to finish the relevant part of Brewer's 1964 testimony! He didn't go out into the alley, he wasn't taken into the alley and a squad car by police. Let's see exactly what he did do. I'll put in boldface the part you forgot:
Mr. BREWER - I heard a noise outside, and I opened the door, and the alley, I guess it was filled with police cars and policemen were on the fire exits and stacked around the alley, and they grabbed me, a couple of them and held and searched me and asked me what I was doing there, and I told them that there was a guy in the theatre that I was suspicious of, and he asked me if he was still there. And I said, yes, I just seen him. And he asked me if I would point him out. And I and two or three other officers walked out on the stage and I pointed him out, and there were officers coming in from the front of the show, I guess, coming toward that way, and officers going from the back.
Then, of course, Brewer went on for a lengthy discussion of "Lee Harvey Oswald's" arrest, which he says he witnessed in its entirety from inside the theater. You guys forgot to mention that.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Jim H.,
The portion of Johnny Brewer's testimony you just highlighted doesn't eliminate the possibility that Brewer could have been very briefly pulled out into the alley by the police officers who grabbed him. I don't know if they did pull him out in the alley or not*, but we do know that Brewer did open the back door (next to the alley), and a gun was held on Brewer and he was grabbed by the cops.
And even if Brewer wasn't actually physically in the alley, it's possible that a witness who was in that alley could have still gotten a view of the cops grabbing Brewer at gunpoint just inside the back door of the Texas Theater.
[* JULY 2021 EDIT -- I've confirmed, via Johnny Brewer's own words in this 1996 interview, that Brewer was, indeed, pulled out into the alley by the police after Brewer opened the back door to the theater. Brewer said this in that '96 interview: "When I opened the door they grabbed me and pulled me out into the alley."]
DENIS MORISSETTE SAID:
Probably an innocent man who for some reason attracted police’s attention. At the wrong place at the wrong time. The same happened to a friend of mine after a shooting in a mall. Because he looked like one of the suspects he was handcuffed and put in a police car just in case. That’s good police practice. Nobody at DPD bothered writing a detailed report with the name of this second arrest.
PAUL BACON SAID:
Sure, an innocent man who looked exactly like Lee Harvey Oswald.
DENIS MORISSETTE SAID:
My friend just happened to look like a suspect! You don’t think it’s strange??? 🤣 Michael Paine looked like Lee. Bill Lovelady looked like Lee.
PAUL BACON SAID:
And so did someone who was roaming around Dallas for a couple of months pretending to be LHO.
DENIS MORISSETTE SAID:
So you really believe there was an arrest of someone with connections with Lee or/and the plotters?
PAUL BACON SAID:
Yes, I do. Definitely with the plotters. There's too much credible research that indicates it.
DENIS MORISSETTE SAID:
So the plotters sent this look-alike to do what...?
PAUL BACON SAID:
Ahhh, the million dollar question. If I could answer that, I'd be writing a book.
JIM HARGROVE SAID:
The plotters sent the look-alike (let's call him "Lee") to 10th and Patton to murder J.D. Tippit, and then, after giving his gun, jacket, and wallet containing Oswald and Hidell ID's to Captain Westbrook, Lee went to the Texas Theater, was told to make a scene entering it to lead police there, where the other Oswald (let's call him "Harvey") had already been inside for 10 minutes or so.
DENIS MORISSETTE SAID:
Good stuff for novels. I could create dozens of theories contradicting each other but making enough sense on their own. CTers' life is the easy life! CTers can create their own scenarios and change the details as much as they want.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Amen!
"That's what is so terribly nice about being a conspiracy theorist, isn't it? You can just start spitting out theories and fall back on CTer Rule #4A: "If All Else Fails, Just Say That Something Is Fake". LNers, thankfully, don't have such freedom with the evidence. And therein lies one of the major differences between a "CT" mindset and the "LN" mindset.....not every single thing has to be "suspicious" or "phony" to an "LNer" in order to arrive at the truth."
-- DVP; October 28, 2007
DAVID VON PEIN ALSO SAID:
FYI / FWIW....
Here's an excerpt from Vincent Bugliosi's JFK book concerning some of the things Johnny Brewer did while at the Texas Theater on 11/22/63 (emphasis added by DVP):
"Behind the stage Johnny Brewer is standing near the curtains that separate the audience and the exit door on the left side of the screen. When the house lights come up, he steps to the curtain and scans the astonished audience. There he is—the man he saw slip into the theater. He's sitting in the center section, six or seven rows from the back of the theater. No sooner do the lights come up than the man stands up, and scoots to the aisle to his right. Police are pouring into the lobby. The suspect turns around and sits back down, this time in the third row from the back.
Suddenly, Brewer hears someone rattling the exit door from the outside. The shoe store manager pushes the door open and is immediately grabbed by two officers as he is exiting. The alley is crawling with cops, some up on the theater's fire escape. Officer Thomas A. Hutson puts a gun into Brewer's stomach. "Put your hands up and don't make a move." Brewer is shaking. "I'm not the one," he stammers. "I just came back to open the door for you. I work up the street. There's a guy inside that I was suspicious of."
The officer can see that Brewer's clothing—sport coat and tie—is different from the description of the suspect. "Is he still there?" Hutson asks. "Yes. I just seen him," Brewer tells him, and leads the lawmen into the theater." -- Page 104 of "Reclaiming History" by Vincent T. Bugliosi
Bugliosi's source for the words I put in bold text above is 7 H 30, which is Warren Commission testimony from Dallas police officer Thomas A. Hutson. In that WC testimony, Hutson said this about Brewer:
OFFICER HUTSON -- "We pulled up to this location [the Texas Theater] and I was the first out of the car to hit the ground. As I walked up to the fire exit doors, Officer Hawkins and Baggett were getting out of the car, and the door to the theatre opened, and this unknown white male was exiting. I drew my pistol and put it on him and told him to put up his hands and not to make a move, and he was real nervous and scared and said: "I am not the one. I just came back to open the door. I work up the street at the shoestore, and Julia sent me back to open the door so you could get in." I walked up and searched him briefly and I could see by the description and his clothes that he wasn't the person we were looking for. Then I entered the theatre from this door."
JOHN ARMSTRONG SAID:
We now know that Westbrook, Croy, and LEE Oswald conspired to murder Officer Tippit, and frame HARVEY Oswald for the crime.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Despicable allegations there against DPD officers Croy and Westbrook. But it's par for the course for many conspiracy theorists. They couldn't care less how many people they accuse of being murderers and liars on the flimiest of evidence (which amounts, really, to no "evidence" at all --- a gut feeling is more than enough "evidence" for the John Armstrongs of the world).
RON BULMAN SAID:
If you need DVP to help you understand this, you have my sympathy. I don't pretend to fully, but if you're going to lean on the Warren Omission theories, they were proven long ago to be a house of cards.
One Oswald came in between 1:00 and 1:07, per Burroughs.
CORY SANTOS SAID:
So the only witness to this alleged Oswald at 1 was Burroughs, who did not actually see him per your above statement?
That is not how things work.
If he could not identify the man who entered around 1, then his later, as you called it, conclusion, that it was LHO is nothing more than speculation.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
FWIW #2....
RAY MITCHAM SAID:
Typical Bugliosi bull poop. Burroughs was being asked about the second Oswald, not the first. He wasn't asked about the first one.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
So, you don't think Butch Burroughs had any obligation at all to tell Joe Ball of the Warren Commission about having sold popcorn to Lee Oswald at about 1:15 PM on 11/22/63, right? Even though Burroughs had to know that such information would be extremely important to the Commission's pending investigation, correct?
Or, as Vincent Bugliosi put it in 1986 when questioning Paul O'Connor at the Oswald Mock Trial....
"So, in other words, [Mr. Burroughs]...if those investigators for the [Warren Commission] didn't ask you the magic question, by golly you're not about to tell 'em!! Is that correct?"
HANK SIENZANT SAID ALL THIS.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Good post, Hank. Thanks very much.
CORY SANTOS SAID:
Can DVP explain the arrest in the balcony? Was it simply a mistake?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
From a 2014 discussion....
MARTIN WEIDMANN SAID -- "What made several police officers say in their reports that Oswald was arrested on the balcony of the TT?"
DVP SAID -- "A very minor mistake really. Not important. He was arrested IN the theater. Just not "in the balcony". But we know the initial DPD radio call said they thought the suspect was "hiding in the balcony". This early erroneous speculation could have been repeated by some of the officers. Some errors get repeated from one person to the next."
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
Just for the record, on the 23rd, the DPD was still writing reports saying Oswald was arrested in the balcony. (Harvey and Lee, p. 871)
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
And for several hours on November 22nd, the media was still giving the public the erroneous idea that Officer Tippit had been killed in a gun battle right there inside the Texas Theater.
So there was quite a bit of bad information being put out (unintentionally) on television and radio in those early hours after the assassination (as I chronicle in the 27-minute video below). Such things always happen in a Mega News Event like this one.
RICK McTAGUE SAID:
The narrator [in this video] says that the gun the officer is holding (a revolver) was the gun used to murder Tippit.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
That was one of several mistakes made by Ron Reiland when he narrated his news film on WFAA-TV on 11/22/63. The pistol being shown is J.D. Tippit's own service revolver, not the Tippit murder weapon.
BART KAMP SAID THIS.
DAVID JOSEPHS SAID:
“Searched him good and found nothing.”
2.5 hrs later, 5 bullets and a bus transfer are supposedly found in his pants pocket and shirt pocket, respectively.
Thx Bart, that about blows those items of evidence out the window.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
It does no such thing.
Officer C.T. Walker obviously meant that he found no weapons on Oswald when Walker searched him at City Hall. Walker, at that point, wasn't concerned about a bus transfer being in LHO's pocket, nor was he concerned about the five loose bullets. Walker was concerned with WEAPONS still being on Oswald's person.
It's nearly impossible for me to believe, however, that somebody from the DPD, prior to Walker, hadn't already patted down LHO for additional weapons while they still had Oswald in the theater. And some police officer probably did that very thing in the theater itself. That's almost always the very first thing you see cops doing after they arrest a suspect---they pat him down for weapons. And I doubt that that standard routine was any different with U.S. police departments in circa 1963.
More Bullet Talk:
http://jfk-archives/The Bullets In Lee Harvey Oswald's Pocket
Also See:
http://jfk-archives/"Well, They Say It Just Takes A Second To Die"
David Von Pein
July 22-27, 2019
July 23-26, 2019
