Post by Gil Jesus on Oct 9, 2021 8:11:13 GMT -5
THE DEFENSE WITNESSES
On my Youtube Channel, there is a 1966 interview by attorney Mark Lane of witness Acquila Clemons. Mrs. Clemons heard the shots and ran out into the street and saw two men on opposite sides of the street.
She said the man she saw with the gun was "short and kind of chunky" and the other was tall, thin and had a white shirt on and light-colored khakis. She said that the men seemed like they were not together and ran off in opposite directions. She claimed that she never told anyone what she saw.
In spite of this, two days after the shooting, she was told by plain clothes "man with a gun" to "keep quiet" or she might get hurt. Were the authorities warning her that the killer lived in the neighborhood and was still at large?
BTW, Mrs. Clemons was never called to testify nor was she ever interviewed by the Warren Commission. The FBI used intimidation tactics against witnesses who said that the gunman was not Oswald. While questioning these witnesses, the FBI told them that by saying that the gunman was not Oswald, they were making a "statement" and if they were wrong and it turned out to be Oswald, they could be charged with making a false statement to a Federal Agent and faced a five-year prison term. The only way to avoid this charge, the witnesses were told, was to say that they "could not identify" the gunman. Of course, witnesses feared a prison term for just being wrong, so many of them changed what they said and went on the record as having been unable to identify the gunman.
This is why, I believe, the FBI was present at all, if not most of the witness interviews involving the assassination and the murder of Tippit. They had no jurisdiction in either of those cases.
They were there to be able to intimidate the witnesses. The story of witness William Smith is a perfect example of this. William Smith was allegedly visiting a friend of his and was about a block away from the shooting. He told someone that he saw the gunman and it was not Oswald. Either the person he told or someone else who heard about it sent a letter to the FBI. This is the FBI teletype describing the letter:
gil-jesus.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/62-109060-JFK-HQ-file-Sec-21.png
The receipt of this letter AFTER Oswald's guilt had already been determined caused FBI to interview Smith on December 13, 1963. Not surprisingly, he told them that he was "too far away from the individual to positively identify him". (CD 205, pg. 243) But apparently, he was close enough to be able to see that he was wearing a white shirt. A shirt that witnesses who were much closer than he was couldn't see.
By the time he gave his deposition on April 2, 1964, Smith was ready to identify Oswald.
Mr. Ball. What did you see? What did you tell the FBI agent about the appearance of the man in the picture?
Mr. Smith. I said it looked more like him than it did on television.
Mr. Ball. And did you think when he showed you the picture that it looked anything like the man you had seen running away?
Mr. Smith. What I saw of him ; yes.
Mr. Ball. First time you ever saw this man was after you heard these shots?
Mr. Smith. Yes, sir. (7 H 85)
Of course, the Commission's counsel never asked him about the letter that was sent to the FBI stating that he saw the gunman and that it was NOT Oswald. Neither the Commission nor the FBI was able to determine who sent the letter or why.
Frank Wright lived in a ground floor apartment on 10th Street, about half a block east of the murder site. He was never interviewed by the FBI and not called to give testimony as a witness. He WAS interviewed by George and Patricia Nash in 1964 and his description of a man he saw fleeing the scene in a car was NOT Oswald.
“I was sitting watching television with my wife. I was sitting in a chair next to the door. I wasn’t but two steps from the door. I heard shots. I knew it wasn’t backfire. I knew it was shots. As soon as I heard them, I went out the door. I could see a police car in the next block. It was toward the end of the next block. I could see it clearly. The police car was headed toward me. It was parked on the south side of the street. In other words, it was parked across the street from our apartment house. I saw a person right by the car. He had fallen down. It seems as if he had just fallen down. He was on the ground, and then he turned over face down. Part of him was under the left front fender of the car. It seems to me that I saw him just as he hit the ground. I saw him turn over and he didn’t move any more.
“I looked around to see what had happened. I knew there had been a shooting. I saw a man standing right in front of the car. He was looking toward the man on the ground. He stood there for a while and looked at the man. The man who was standing in front of him was about medium height. He had on a long coat. It ended just above his hands. I didn’t see any gun. He ran around on the passenger side of the police car. He ran as fast as he could go and he got into his car. He car was a grey, little old coupe. It was about a 1950–1951, maybe a Plymouth. It was a grey car, parked on the same side of the street as the police car but beyond it from me. It was heading away from me. He got in that car and he drove away as quick as you could see. He drove down 10th Street, away from me. I don’t know how far he drove. After he got into the middle of the next block between Patton and Crawford, I didn’t look at him any more.
“I looked at the car where the man was. I looked to see what had happened there. About the same time as I came out, or maybe a little while after, a woman came down from her porch. She was at the house about three or four doors from the intersection of 10th and Patton. The house was on the same side of the street as the police car. Just as the man in the car pulled away she came toward the police car and then she stepped back. I heard her shout, ‘Oh, he’s been shot!’ throwing up her hands. Then she went back toward the house. There was no one out there except me and that woman when I got there, except for the man I described earlier. I couldn’t figure out who did the shooting. I didn’t see a gun on the man who was standing in front of the car. There wasn’t anyone else but the man who drove away and the woman who came down from her porch. I was the first person out. I knew there wasn’t anyone else there at all. It wasn’t any time at all until the ambulance got there. By the time the ambulance got there, there were maybe 25 more people outside. Then after a while, the police came up. I tried to tell two or three people what I saw. They didn’t pay any attention. I’ve seen what came out on television and in the papers but I know that’s not what happened. I know a man drove off in a grey car. Nothing in the world’s going to change my opinion. I saw that man drive off in a grey coupe just as clear as I was born. I know what I saw They can say all they want about a fellow running away, but I can’t accept this because I saw a fellow get in a car and drive away."
gil-jesus.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/wright-article.jpg
We have no way of knowing how the investigation could have ignored Wright, whether his memory is accurate, or whether a plausible explanation for the mysterious man in the car might be a passerby unwilling to be a witness.
Why didn’t this account come to the Commission’s attention?
The question becomes all the more relevant when it is realized that it was a call from Mrs. Wright which was responsible for the ambulance being dispatched, and the police had her address. The operator took Mrs. Wright’s address, 501 East 10th, and called the police. The police noted there was a shooting at 501 East 10th. So why didn't they interview anyone at that address? If this were a legitimate investigation, they would have. But this was no investigation to find the truth, this was a collection of "evidence" to prove Oswald was guilty.
There's a difference.
Another witness who "could not identify" Oswald was L J Lewis. Lewis was at the Johnny Reynolds car lot with Harold Russell and Pat Patterson when they heard the shots and witnessed the gunman running south on Patton Ave. He was interviewed by the FBI on January 21, 1964 at which time he was shown Oswald's New Orleans mugshot. In spite of this, he told the FBI that "he would hesitate to state whether the individual was identical with Oswald".
gil-jesus.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/lewis-1-22.png
Lewis was interviewed a second time, on August 25, 1964 at which time he twice described the man he saw as an "unknown individual". (21 H 26)
Not Oswald. Lewis was never called to testify. Butch Burroughs was a ticket-taker and concession stand operator at the Texas Theater. In this video on my Youtube channel, Burroughs says that Oswald entered the theater between 1:00 and 1:07 pm, making it impossible for him to have been at the Tippit murder scene.
Another witness who "could not positively identify" Oswald as the man he saw was Robert Brock. Brock and his wife ran the Ballew Texaco Service Station on Jefferson Ave. Brock told the FBI that a young white male passed him and his wife and proceeded north into the parking lot behind the station.
gil-jesus.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/robert-brock.png
The FBI report doesn't state which photograph was shown to Brock, but I assume it was the same mugshot from New Orleans that was shown to his wife on the same date.
These were witnesses who either described someone other than Oswald, "could not positively identify" Oswald, or flat out said it wasn't Oswald. Witnesses who changed their story and said they saw Oswald, like William Smith and Butch Burroughs, gave testimony. Witnesses who "could not identify Oswald" or identified someone who was NOT Oswald were never called.
NEXT WEEKEND THE CONCLUSION: Eyewitnesses, false convictions and the science of memory loss.
On my Youtube Channel, there is a 1966 interview by attorney Mark Lane of witness Acquila Clemons. Mrs. Clemons heard the shots and ran out into the street and saw two men on opposite sides of the street.
She said the man she saw with the gun was "short and kind of chunky" and the other was tall, thin and had a white shirt on and light-colored khakis. She said that the men seemed like they were not together and ran off in opposite directions. She claimed that she never told anyone what she saw.
In spite of this, two days after the shooting, she was told by plain clothes "man with a gun" to "keep quiet" or she might get hurt. Were the authorities warning her that the killer lived in the neighborhood and was still at large?
BTW, Mrs. Clemons was never called to testify nor was she ever interviewed by the Warren Commission. The FBI used intimidation tactics against witnesses who said that the gunman was not Oswald. While questioning these witnesses, the FBI told them that by saying that the gunman was not Oswald, they were making a "statement" and if they were wrong and it turned out to be Oswald, they could be charged with making a false statement to a Federal Agent and faced a five-year prison term. The only way to avoid this charge, the witnesses were told, was to say that they "could not identify" the gunman. Of course, witnesses feared a prison term for just being wrong, so many of them changed what they said and went on the record as having been unable to identify the gunman.
This is why, I believe, the FBI was present at all, if not most of the witness interviews involving the assassination and the murder of Tippit. They had no jurisdiction in either of those cases.
They were there to be able to intimidate the witnesses. The story of witness William Smith is a perfect example of this. William Smith was allegedly visiting a friend of his and was about a block away from the shooting. He told someone that he saw the gunman and it was not Oswald. Either the person he told or someone else who heard about it sent a letter to the FBI. This is the FBI teletype describing the letter:
gil-jesus.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/62-109060-JFK-HQ-file-Sec-21.png
The receipt of this letter AFTER Oswald's guilt had already been determined caused FBI to interview Smith on December 13, 1963. Not surprisingly, he told them that he was "too far away from the individual to positively identify him". (CD 205, pg. 243) But apparently, he was close enough to be able to see that he was wearing a white shirt. A shirt that witnesses who were much closer than he was couldn't see.
By the time he gave his deposition on April 2, 1964, Smith was ready to identify Oswald.
Mr. Ball. What did you see? What did you tell the FBI agent about the appearance of the man in the picture?
Mr. Smith. I said it looked more like him than it did on television.
Mr. Ball. And did you think when he showed you the picture that it looked anything like the man you had seen running away?
Mr. Smith. What I saw of him ; yes.
Mr. Ball. First time you ever saw this man was after you heard these shots?
Mr. Smith. Yes, sir. (7 H 85)
Of course, the Commission's counsel never asked him about the letter that was sent to the FBI stating that he saw the gunman and that it was NOT Oswald. Neither the Commission nor the FBI was able to determine who sent the letter or why.
Frank Wright lived in a ground floor apartment on 10th Street, about half a block east of the murder site. He was never interviewed by the FBI and not called to give testimony as a witness. He WAS interviewed by George and Patricia Nash in 1964 and his description of a man he saw fleeing the scene in a car was NOT Oswald.
“I was sitting watching television with my wife. I was sitting in a chair next to the door. I wasn’t but two steps from the door. I heard shots. I knew it wasn’t backfire. I knew it was shots. As soon as I heard them, I went out the door. I could see a police car in the next block. It was toward the end of the next block. I could see it clearly. The police car was headed toward me. It was parked on the south side of the street. In other words, it was parked across the street from our apartment house. I saw a person right by the car. He had fallen down. It seems as if he had just fallen down. He was on the ground, and then he turned over face down. Part of him was under the left front fender of the car. It seems to me that I saw him just as he hit the ground. I saw him turn over and he didn’t move any more.
“I looked around to see what had happened. I knew there had been a shooting. I saw a man standing right in front of the car. He was looking toward the man on the ground. He stood there for a while and looked at the man. The man who was standing in front of him was about medium height. He had on a long coat. It ended just above his hands. I didn’t see any gun. He ran around on the passenger side of the police car. He ran as fast as he could go and he got into his car. He car was a grey, little old coupe. It was about a 1950–1951, maybe a Plymouth. It was a grey car, parked on the same side of the street as the police car but beyond it from me. It was heading away from me. He got in that car and he drove away as quick as you could see. He drove down 10th Street, away from me. I don’t know how far he drove. After he got into the middle of the next block between Patton and Crawford, I didn’t look at him any more.
“I looked at the car where the man was. I looked to see what had happened there. About the same time as I came out, or maybe a little while after, a woman came down from her porch. She was at the house about three or four doors from the intersection of 10th and Patton. The house was on the same side of the street as the police car. Just as the man in the car pulled away she came toward the police car and then she stepped back. I heard her shout, ‘Oh, he’s been shot!’ throwing up her hands. Then she went back toward the house. There was no one out there except me and that woman when I got there, except for the man I described earlier. I couldn’t figure out who did the shooting. I didn’t see a gun on the man who was standing in front of the car. There wasn’t anyone else but the man who drove away and the woman who came down from her porch. I was the first person out. I knew there wasn’t anyone else there at all. It wasn’t any time at all until the ambulance got there. By the time the ambulance got there, there were maybe 25 more people outside. Then after a while, the police came up. I tried to tell two or three people what I saw. They didn’t pay any attention. I’ve seen what came out on television and in the papers but I know that’s not what happened. I know a man drove off in a grey car. Nothing in the world’s going to change my opinion. I saw that man drive off in a grey coupe just as clear as I was born. I know what I saw They can say all they want about a fellow running away, but I can’t accept this because I saw a fellow get in a car and drive away."
gil-jesus.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/wright-article.jpg
We have no way of knowing how the investigation could have ignored Wright, whether his memory is accurate, or whether a plausible explanation for the mysterious man in the car might be a passerby unwilling to be a witness.
Why didn’t this account come to the Commission’s attention?
The question becomes all the more relevant when it is realized that it was a call from Mrs. Wright which was responsible for the ambulance being dispatched, and the police had her address. The operator took Mrs. Wright’s address, 501 East 10th, and called the police. The police noted there was a shooting at 501 East 10th. So why didn't they interview anyone at that address? If this were a legitimate investigation, they would have. But this was no investigation to find the truth, this was a collection of "evidence" to prove Oswald was guilty.
There's a difference.
Another witness who "could not identify" Oswald was L J Lewis. Lewis was at the Johnny Reynolds car lot with Harold Russell and Pat Patterson when they heard the shots and witnessed the gunman running south on Patton Ave. He was interviewed by the FBI on January 21, 1964 at which time he was shown Oswald's New Orleans mugshot. In spite of this, he told the FBI that "he would hesitate to state whether the individual was identical with Oswald".
gil-jesus.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/lewis-1-22.png
Lewis was interviewed a second time, on August 25, 1964 at which time he twice described the man he saw as an "unknown individual". (21 H 26)
Not Oswald. Lewis was never called to testify. Butch Burroughs was a ticket-taker and concession stand operator at the Texas Theater. In this video on my Youtube channel, Burroughs says that Oswald entered the theater between 1:00 and 1:07 pm, making it impossible for him to have been at the Tippit murder scene.
Another witness who "could not positively identify" Oswald as the man he saw was Robert Brock. Brock and his wife ran the Ballew Texaco Service Station on Jefferson Ave. Brock told the FBI that a young white male passed him and his wife and proceeded north into the parking lot behind the station.
gil-jesus.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/robert-brock.png
The FBI report doesn't state which photograph was shown to Brock, but I assume it was the same mugshot from New Orleans that was shown to his wife on the same date.
These were witnesses who either described someone other than Oswald, "could not positively identify" Oswald, or flat out said it wasn't Oswald. Witnesses who changed their story and said they saw Oswald, like William Smith and Butch Burroughs, gave testimony. Witnesses who "could not identify Oswald" or identified someone who was NOT Oswald were never called.
NEXT WEEKEND THE CONCLUSION: Eyewitnesses, false convictions and the science of memory loss.