Post by John Duncan on Apr 21, 2022 14:51:47 GMT -5
In Which Sgt. Hill Shoots Himself In the Foot With An Automatic
By Donald Willis 4/21
Edited by John Duncan
www.kennedysandking.com/images/2018/tippit-dieugenio/gerald-l-hill.jpg
...automatic.
Witness Domingo Benavides, DPD Patrolman Joe M. Poe, and DPD Sgt. Gerald Hill were in perfect agreement at the Warren Commission hearings.
Benavides: "[The suspect] had just got back to the sidewalk when he threw he first [shell], and when he threw the second one, he had already cut back into the yard." (V 6, p. 450)
Poe: "[Benavides] told me [the suspect] was running out across this lawn. He was unloading his pistol as he ran." (V 7, p. 68)
Hill: "Poe showed me a Winston cigarette package that contained three spent jackets from shells that he said a citizen had pointed out to him where the suspect had reloaded his gun and dropped these in he grass." (V 7, pp. 48-49)
So it would seem that the gunman was carrying a revolver: The shells were manually discarded.
And yet, at 1:41, Hill radioed that the "shells at the scene indicate that the suspect is armed with an automatic 38, rather than a pistol." (DPD radio logs)
First desperate move: Hill denied, at the Commission hearings, that he was the one who had sent the transmission: "That probably is R.D. Stringer". (v7p57) (Stringer was not called to testify.) Second desperate move: And DPD transcriber Sgt. G.D. Henslee attributed the transmission to "Westbrook-Batchelor". (V 21, p. 397) (Neither officer testified re the transmission.) Much later, Hill finally took responsibility for it: "In a 1986 interview, Hill admitted being the cop behind the strange broadcast...." (With Malice, p260)
But as far back as 1964, the groundwork was being laid in case future investigators looked at future transcriptions of the DPD radio logs--for instance, the August 11, 1964 FBI transcription, which properly appended "Sergeant G. Hill" to the transmission. Benavides also testified that "One of [the shells] went down inside of a bush, and the other one was by the bush"--they were, he says, pretty close together, as shells automatically ejected would have been. The fact that there were shells on the ground, in the first place, and, in the second, that they were found near each other, would indicate, for any future investigation, that they were from an automatic, and explained the "automatic" on the radio.
Third desperate move: Supporting this version of the story was also the fact that Hill supposedly saw, as he testified, only the cigarette package, and not the shells inside it. Thus the only possible explanation of that "automatic" seemed to be that the shells were found (a) on the ground and (b) close together. The shells themselves, supposedly, then, did not figure in the 1:41 transmission. Hill hadn't seen them.
Hill and his transmission were insulated by Benavides' testimony, by Henslee's false transcription, and by the ingenious employment of the cigarette package. How could he possibly be undone? How? Well, he done undid himself.
"Asked how he determined that the shells were 38 caliber, Hill replied, 'You can tell that from the shell. Thirty-eight's stamped on the bottom of it. I looked on the bottom'." (With Malice p261, author's 1986 interview of Hill) All that insulation, up in smoke. All three layers of separation between Hill and the shells--poof!
But why was such care taken to separate Hill from shells? Dale Myers goes on to explain: "Hill's explanation compounds the problem. For if true, Hill would have seen additional stamp impressions. Thirty-eight automatic cartridges are traditionally marked, '38 AUTO'...." (p. 261)
Myers then goes on to distract his readers from the "38" issue by returning to the relatively simple "automatic" issue: "There is no indication that Hill ever studied the shells to the degree that his later claims suggest. Hill's explanation that the radio transmission describing the shells as "automatics" was based on an incorrect assumption is probably very close to the truth." (p. 261)
In other words, Myers has no explanation, other than Hill's, for the "38". He does not even attempt one. His only recourse is to distract, distract. So, as of now, Hill's explanation--the only one we have, so far, in some 57 years--stands: He saw "38" "on the bottom" of the shells. His three layers of separation couldn't keep him from "38 AUTO"....
By Donald Willis 4/21
Edited by John Duncan
www.kennedysandking.com/images/2018/tippit-dieugenio/gerald-l-hill.jpg
...automatic.
Witness Domingo Benavides, DPD Patrolman Joe M. Poe, and DPD Sgt. Gerald Hill were in perfect agreement at the Warren Commission hearings.
Benavides: "[The suspect] had just got back to the sidewalk when he threw he first [shell], and when he threw the second one, he had already cut back into the yard." (V 6, p. 450)
Poe: "[Benavides] told me [the suspect] was running out across this lawn. He was unloading his pistol as he ran." (V 7, p. 68)
Hill: "Poe showed me a Winston cigarette package that contained three spent jackets from shells that he said a citizen had pointed out to him where the suspect had reloaded his gun and dropped these in he grass." (V 7, pp. 48-49)
So it would seem that the gunman was carrying a revolver: The shells were manually discarded.
And yet, at 1:41, Hill radioed that the "shells at the scene indicate that the suspect is armed with an automatic 38, rather than a pistol." (DPD radio logs)
First desperate move: Hill denied, at the Commission hearings, that he was the one who had sent the transmission: "That probably is R.D. Stringer". (v7p57) (Stringer was not called to testify.) Second desperate move: And DPD transcriber Sgt. G.D. Henslee attributed the transmission to "Westbrook-Batchelor". (V 21, p. 397) (Neither officer testified re the transmission.) Much later, Hill finally took responsibility for it: "In a 1986 interview, Hill admitted being the cop behind the strange broadcast...." (With Malice, p260)
But as far back as 1964, the groundwork was being laid in case future investigators looked at future transcriptions of the DPD radio logs--for instance, the August 11, 1964 FBI transcription, which properly appended "Sergeant G. Hill" to the transmission. Benavides also testified that "One of [the shells] went down inside of a bush, and the other one was by the bush"--they were, he says, pretty close together, as shells automatically ejected would have been. The fact that there were shells on the ground, in the first place, and, in the second, that they were found near each other, would indicate, for any future investigation, that they were from an automatic, and explained the "automatic" on the radio.
Third desperate move: Supporting this version of the story was also the fact that Hill supposedly saw, as he testified, only the cigarette package, and not the shells inside it. Thus the only possible explanation of that "automatic" seemed to be that the shells were found (a) on the ground and (b) close together. The shells themselves, supposedly, then, did not figure in the 1:41 transmission. Hill hadn't seen them.
Hill and his transmission were insulated by Benavides' testimony, by Henslee's false transcription, and by the ingenious employment of the cigarette package. How could he possibly be undone? How? Well, he done undid himself.
"Asked how he determined that the shells were 38 caliber, Hill replied, 'You can tell that from the shell. Thirty-eight's stamped on the bottom of it. I looked on the bottom'." (With Malice p261, author's 1986 interview of Hill) All that insulation, up in smoke. All three layers of separation between Hill and the shells--poof!
But why was such care taken to separate Hill from shells? Dale Myers goes on to explain: "Hill's explanation compounds the problem. For if true, Hill would have seen additional stamp impressions. Thirty-eight automatic cartridges are traditionally marked, '38 AUTO'...." (p. 261)
Myers then goes on to distract his readers from the "38" issue by returning to the relatively simple "automatic" issue: "There is no indication that Hill ever studied the shells to the degree that his later claims suggest. Hill's explanation that the radio transmission describing the shells as "automatics" was based on an incorrect assumption is probably very close to the truth." (p. 261)
In other words, Myers has no explanation, other than Hill's, for the "38". He does not even attempt one. His only recourse is to distract, distract. So, as of now, Hill's explanation--the only one we have, so far, in some 57 years--stands: He saw "38" "on the bottom" of the shells. His three layers of separation couldn't keep him from "38 AUTO"....