It wasn ’ t long after the Pearl Harbor attack that I was hurt at sea during a typhoon . The doctor told me I ’ d done all I could do at that point , and in the middle of December , I ended up back stateside . Despite my arguments , the doctors refused to allow me to go back out to sea . Fortunately , I soon received an opportunity to contribute to the war effort in another way , when I was approached by the Army Air Forces to manage supplies at a huge new warehouse that was being built . I took the job , joined by a young nurse I ’ d become friendly with during my recovery . We became engaged , and were married for more than 72 years until she passed away .
After the war , I moved on to Dallas , where I took up a job working for the Federal government as an auditor . It wasn ’ t long after that I saw an ad from the Dallas Police Department . After several years , I became a police detective and moved to the homicide division , where I stayed for just about the remainder of my career .
The most famous – or more accurately infamous – incident to happen during my time in the homicide division was the 1963 assassination of President Kennedy . After that , the suspected sniper , Lee Harvey Oswald , made his way to Oak Cliff until he was stopped on the street for questioning . Officer J . D . Tippit stopped him because he was walking along at a pretty fast clip and looked suspicious . But this wasn ’ t anything irregular - ninety-nine times out of a hundred you sent someone on their way because they weren ’ t who you were looking for . Tippit was given a general description of what Oswald looked like from the people who had seen him in
the window after the shots were fired . So he stopped him , merely to question him about his name and so forth . Oswald , in return , shot Tippit , before storming off , which was corroborated by at least four witnesses on the scene .
When he pulled up , Tippit called Oswald over to the door to talk for a few
THE MOMENT OF ATTACK . JACK RUBY LUNGES AT OSWALD AS JIM LEAVELLE ESCORTS HIM THROUGH THE BASEMENT OF THE DALLAS POLICE HEADQUARTERS .
seconds . He then got out of the car and started walking around the front to get to Oswald , who had stepped back a few feet . Suddenly , Oswald pulled out a pistol and went into a firing stance he ’ d been taught in the Marines and shot four times .
When Oswald finished shooting , he turned and ran past several witnesses , including a cab driver who heard him say something along the lines of “ The poor damn cop ,” or “ The poor dumb cop ,” which suggested he had no intention of shooting Tippit – he had simply panicked .
After the shooting , a thrilling chase ensued . Oswald took off and continued running before coming across a used car lot down on the corner where he was spotted . He had a tan jacket on and was smart enough to know that he would probably be described wearing the jacket , so he took it off and tried to throw it underneath a car . Of course , later with that information , we found the jacket and identified it as his . When he saw two policemen near him , he popped into a shoe store and pretended to look at shoes . There were no customers , though , and the owner had been listening to news of everything transpiring on the radio . When Oswald left and looked both ways before moving on , the owner got suspicious and followed him .
When Oswald reached the Texas Theatre , rather than buying a ticket he just darted in and went to sit down . The shoe store clerk saw this , and told the ticket seller that the man he thought had shot the police officer had gone inside and they should call the police . When they arrived , they swarmed him and took him into custody .
When Oswald was brought in , he was only considered a suspect in the killing of Tippit . He wasn ’ t brought in on suspicion of killing the President at that point . I had tried to be at the Texas Theatre when Oswald was arrested , but the traffic made it impossible for me to get there on time . I called the dispatcher and told him to take Oswald to my office and I ’ d meet them there , but they were driving a marked car and I was in a plain car so they arrived ahead
SPRING 2016 9