of me . When I got in , he was sitting in an interrogation room by himself . I went in , sat down , and started talking to him about Tippit . I never even mentioned the president because I had no idea of his possible involvement . I had Oswald for less than twenty minutes , when Captain Fritz came back from the school book depository where he and several other officers had been searching . Of course , when they went in there , they went in expecting to find a stranger , not an employee . When they didn ’ t find anyone , they asked the manager to do a head count . Oswald was the only employee missing and Capt . Fritz said , “ I want to talk to that man . Give me his address .”
As it turned out , Oswald had given them a phony address . He didn ’ t live there . So the captain was in a bit of flurry looking for Oswald ’ s whereabouts when an officer informed him that I had someone in interrogation by that name . Capt . Fritz came in and asked Oswald , in front of all of us , where he worked and when Oswald said he worked at the school book depository , the captain knew he had his man . From then on , the captain had privilege and took over the investigation . I didn ’ t get to question him further , but I had already gleaned some pretty useful information .
Although the investigation had been handed over to Capt . Fritz , Oswald was still assigned to me as a prisoner . So when he was transferred , it was my responsibility to move him . That ’ s why he was handcuffed to me when we walked through the basement of the police headquarters .
When we made that move through the basement , I vividly remember seeing Jack Ruby before he made his move . I always made it a habit when I went into a room , particularly during an investigation of any kind , to look up and down my surroundings . He was facing me about five or six
feet away . When I lowered my gaze , I also saw that he had a pistol in his left hand , held tight against his left leg . Of course , it all happened so fast there was little time to react , but I knew what was going to happen when I saw the pistol .
I gave the people in that room a hard time about it later on . If they had all looked hard enough , they would have seen the pistol and could have taken him down and been heroes . But as it is , it was up to me to confront him . Ruby made two quick steps which brought him within an arm ’ s length , I reached past Oswald and caught him by the left shoulder , to try and push him back . At the same time , Ruby moved the pistol over to his right hand and fired a shot . In response , I jerked back and tried to pull Oswald behind me . I turned his body enough that , instead of the bullet hitting him dead center , it entered Oswald about four inches to the left of the navel on the left side . The bullet went through the stomach and took a chunk out of the liver on the right side before striking a major artery , shattering the end of the seventh rib , and then
NEARLY 22 YEARS AFTER PEARL HARBOR , JIM LEAVELLE WITNESSES ANOTHER MOMENT OF INFAMY , AS OSWALD IS SHOT TO DEATH .
IN A 2006 INTERVIEW WITH TOM BROKAW , LEAVELLE REMEMBERED JOKING TO OSWALD BEFORE HIS TRANSFER , “‘ LEE , IF ANYBODY SHOOTS YOU , I HOPE THEY ARE AS GOOD A SHOT AS YOU ARE ,’ MEANING THAT THE PERSON WOULD HIT OSWALD INSTEAD OF ME . HE KIND OF SMILED AND SAID , YOU ’ RE BEING MELODRAMATIC ... NOBODY IS GOING TO SHOOT AT ME .’” glancing off and lodging itself about three or four inches to the right of where it went in . It so happened that if it hadn ’ t hit the rib , it ’ s likely it would have continued its path and hit me as well .
When I examined him later , you could roll the bullet in your thumb underneath his skin . After I got him to the hospital , and went with him as he was rolled into the operating room , I told the doctors that I wanted the bullet out of him . So they pinched it , hit it with a scalpel , and the bullet popped right into a tray the nurse was holding . I wiped it off with a tissue or something , took my pocket knife and gave it to the nurse before telling her , “ I want you to scratch your initials on the butt end of this bullet because you and I , somewhere down the line , are going to be testifying that this is the bullet that came out of Oswald .” After things were taken care of at the hospital , I returned to the office and made up the case report needed to file Ruby on charges of murder .
They did indict Ruby for murder and we tried him the following year , which ended with a death sentence conviction . However , the court of criminal appeals overturned it and sent him for a retrial when it was learned that the judge hearing the case was writing a book about the trial . They felt a fair decision couldn ’ t be made in light of this information , and I think it was the proper decision for the courts to make . Ruby was reset for trial on February 10 , 1967 , but he died just about a month before that retrial was set to begin , on January 3 , 1967 . It turned out he had developed an aggressive cancer while in jail .
It was a surprising end to a wild saga , but I ’ d count this episode as certainly the most memorable in what turned out to be an incredibly fulfilling 25-year career in the police force .
10 AMERICAN VALOR QUARTERLY
AVQ