So the jury is out on whether or not he killed Kennedy, but did he kill Officer Tippet? Has that been conclusively proved?
The preponderance of evidence indicates that LHO,acting alone, shot both the President and Officer Tippet. I would hardly say that “the jury is still out.”
(. . .wondering how long before this is moved over to GD. . .)
This thread will not go to GD. I’m sick and tired of every question that includes a buzzword like “south” or “Kennedy” or whatnot being hijacked by people who ought to know better.
I will summarily delete posts that do not have to do with the Tippet matter.
here is a link which seems responsible. It says “conclusively” that Oswald killed Tippett. Of course, conspiracy theorist survive by claiming otherwise. While eyewitnesses are always subject to mistakes, in this case, it seems unlikely, given the sheer numbers of them.
Has it been proven “conclusively”, to use your word–yes, to most resonable people. It is probably just too unfortunate that it is connected to JFK, which will always taint the findings.
Gadarene and I recently debated this very topic over in GD. You can find the original thread here. I’ve edited the post a bit to help it make sense if you hadn’t been following the whole thread:
As promised, here is a summary of the evidence that converges on Oswald as the killer of J.D. Tippit.
But first, I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss [Helen] Markham as a valid ID of Oswald as the killer. Yes, she has given varying details of the killing, and her version differs in detail from the testimony of other witnesses. But on the central fact of Oswald’s identity as the murderer, she is a very strong witness. From half a block away, she saw a man shoot Tippit. She was quickly taken to the police station, where at around 4:00 (approx. three hours after the murder), she immediately identified Oswald as the murderer in a lineup with three other men. She doesn’t appear to be the brightest (or most emotionally stable) bulb in the box, but that ID seems very solid despite Lane’s later attempts to get her to describe someone else. You may read her testimony here: http://www.jmasland.com/testimony/tippit/markham.htm
[Gadarene had disputed the timing of Tippit’s murder, claiming Oswald could not have been at the scene when Tippit was shot.] According to [Gerald] Posner [author of the definitive Case Closed], the timing of Tippit’s murder is not seriously in dispute:
That seems pretty solid on timing for me.
Helen Markham: While waiting for a bus half a block away, Markham saw a man shoot Tippit. The man then ran towards her, fiddling with his gun, and passed across the street. He looked directly at her, at which point she put her hands over her face. She was clearly traumatized by the event, and had to be given smelling salts at the police station. [Given this reaction, it’s easy to understand her belief that Tippet was trying to talk to her as he died. Hell, it might even be true.] As discussed above, she positively ID’d Oswald in a lineup shortly after the murder. Her Warren Commission testimony is here: http://www.jmasland.com/testimony/tippit/markham.htm
Domingo Benavides: Was driving a pickup when, from approximately 15 feet away from the parked police car, he began to hear gunshots and saw a man shoot Tippit. He saw Tippit fall over after the first shots, then watched the killer leave the scene while emptying shells from the gun. Benavides was one of the witnesses who used Tippit’s radio to report the shooting. Although he got a good look at the killer, Benavides was not taken for a lineup before Oswald was killed. [I’ve seen suggestions that he did not believe he could recognize the killer, but that would be quite different than identifying someone other than Oswald as the killer.] In his WC testimony, he states that he recognized newspaper and television pictures of Oswald as the man he had seen shoot Tippit. He also later told Walter Cronkite that there was no doubt in his mind that Oswald was the killer. http://www.jmasland.com/testimony/tippit/benavides.htm
Virginia and Barbara Davis: Heard gunshots from inside their home. They went to the front of the home and saw a man cutting across their lawn, removing shells from his gun. The man smiled at Virginia as he went around the corner. Barbara heard Helen Markham screaming “He shot him. He is dead. Call the police.” Both women picked out Oswald from a police lineup that night. Here is Barbara Davis’ testimony: http://www.jmasland.com/testimony/tippit/davis_b.htm
William Scoggins: A taxi driver, eating his lunch in his car a half block away from Tippit. He heard gunshots and saw Tippit fall, then hid behind the taxi as a man ran towards him. Scoggins got a good look at the man, and even heard him mutter something like “poor dumb cop.” Scoggins picked Oswald from a police lineup the next day. Here is Scoggins’ WC testimony: http://www.jmasland.com/testimony/tippit/scoggins.htm.
Ted Callaway: Heard gunshots, and ran towards them. He then saw a man run past a cab, carrying a gun in “We used to say in the Marine Corps in a raised pistol position.” Callaway immediately identified Oswald in a police lineup that night. Again, here is the Callaway testimony: http://www.jmasland.com/testimony/tippit/callaway.htm.
Sam Guinyard: Also heard shots and saw a man running away from the scene, emptying shells from his upward-pointing gun. About ten feet from the man at his closest, Guinyard also identified Oswald as the running man with the gun in a police lineup on the night of the murder. http://www.jmasland.com/testimony/tippit/guinyard.htm
Warren Reynolds: Heard shots fired, then saw a man running down the street with a gun in his hand. Reynolds saw the man tuck the gun in his pants before he lost sight of him. Reynolds testified that he had a “very good” look at the man’s face. Although he was not interviewed by law enforcement personnel until two months after the shooting, he had no doubt that the person he saw was Oswald. http://www.jmasland.com/testimony/tippit/reynolds.htm
William Smith and other witnesses also identified Oswald from photographs as the man they had seen running away from the scene. All of the above accounts seem quite consistent, which of course lends credence to their observations. On the other hand, there is Acquilla Clemons, who told [conspiracy theorist Mark] Lane she had seen two men standing in front of the police car before one of them shot Tippit and they both ran in different directions. This account diverges so seriously from those of the other witnesses that its accuracy must be considered questionable, even before one considers that she never reported it to the police and only told Lane more than a year after the shooting.
But wait! There’s more! All the witnesses describe the killer as wearing a tan jacket, although as you see in their testimony, some disagree whether the one that a Dallas police officer retrieved from under a nearby car was the one that they remembered. Nevertheless, Marina Oswald identified this jacket as belonging to her husband. That’s in Vol. 1 of the Warren Commission Hearings and Evidence collection, pages 121-22, according to Posner.
The shells that witnesses retrieved from the scene were matched, to the exclusion of any other gun, to the revolver that Oswald was carrying when arrested. Because the gun had been rechambered from a regular .38 to handle .38 special ammo, it was difficult to match the four slugs retrieved from Tippit’s body to Oswald’s gun. Three were found by experts to have “the same characteristics” as test shots fired from Oswald’s revolver. However, the fourth bullet was matched to Oswald’s gun to the exclusion of all others. Posner cites WC Vol. 3, p. 483 for this conclusion.
Two Winchester shells and two Remington shells were recovered at the scene. Of the four bullets, three were Winchester and one was Remington. The obvious conclusion is that Oswald shot five rounds, and that one Remington bullet and one Winchester shell were not found. An ambulance attendant reported kicking a loose bullet (which had perhaps struck a button on Tippit’s uniform) when unloading Tippit’s body. The witnesses, naturally, disagreed over the number of shots fired, giving estimates of between three and six. And lest anyone think that two different manufacturers of ammunition indicated two different guns were fired, Oswald had a total of eleven rounds on him when he was arrested: eight made by Winchester and three by Remington.
All of the above is, taken together, pretty good evidence that Oswald was the man who murdered Tippit. Mark Lane can dance around with radio transcripts and put words in people’s mouths until the cows come home, but can he show that the evidence, in fact, converges on a different conclusion? [Answer: No, he cannot.]
And as I noted, Lane disputes almost every statement minty just made…using, y’know, actual official transcripts and stuff from which to do so. 
Like I said, minty, I’ll be happy to debate it with you–my copy of Case Closed arrived from the library a couple of days ago, and I’ll start it this weekend. You into Rush to Judgment yet?
Borders is still trying to round up a copy for me. I suspect it’s just plain old out of print. But if you want to dispute the eyewitness testimony and positive identifications of nine people for the sake of the OP, be my guest.
minty there are 253 copies of “Rush to Judgement” for sale at this site books . Some are as cheep as $5. Have at it. A very useful way to buy out of print books.
You’re welcome.