His motive, I suspect, was that he wanted to kill Oswald, and kept going to the police station idly hoping to be presented with an opportunity, which he eventually got. This certainly makes more sense, given his actions, than the idea that the police helped him murder Oswald. If Ruby was part of a larger plot, and was aided in his murder by the police, why did he have to spend so much time hanging around the police station? If he had the inside fix, he’d only need to arrive at just the right time to shoot Oswald. He wouldn’t need to spend days hanging around the place. Hell, if he was colluding with the police, why would he have to disguise himself as a reporter?
The question had become whether or not the killing was premeditated, not necessarily part of any conspiracy. So in that sense it sounds like you agree it was premeditated. As to the question about why he would need to disguise himself as a reporter or hang around waiting for his moment if he had the inside connections - there are any number of reasons. He might have needed, if he was assisted, to ensure nobody else was incriminated. A related question this situation begs is how, as he was impersonating a reporter at the police station, and even offering face to face corrections to the District Attorney in his press conference, did none of them recognize him or question his presence there when he was clearly a very recognizable figure?
From Warren Commission and House Select Committee on Assassinations reports, Ruby was associates with the Campisis of Dallas, Sam Giancana of Chicago, and Carlos Marcello of Louisianna. The Campisis visited him in jail after he killed Oswald and he reportedly ate dinner at their restaurant the night before.
Four years prior to the assassination Ruby traveled to Cuba for a ‘social visit’ with Lewis McWillie whom he reportedly considered to be one of his closest friends. The FBI believed he was acting as a courier for gambling operations and met with Santo Trafficante in Cuba too, but the committees deemed the evidence of this to be circumstantial.
It is abundantly clear from many sources that Ruby had a lot of organized crime associates. How much this influenced his killing Oswald is unknown. I’m not suggesting there is proof he was working with the mob in either his business or his killing of Oswald, but the fact that he was ‘circumstantially’ connected with many high profile mob figures is no secret to anyone nor a particularly controversial point in the case.
I’m willing to accept the fact that Ruby murdered Oswald as evidence that Ruby wanted to murder Oswald. I don’t think it was premeditated in the sense that he had any more of a plan than, “If I see that Oswald fellow, I’m going to kill him!” and then hanging around a place he knew Oswald was staying.
So, he needed a disguise to yell at the DA, but not one when he murdered a guy on camera? Also, if he was supposed to keep a low profile to avoid implicating his fellow co-conspirators, interrupting a press conference doesn’t seem to be the smartest move.
He’s a white guy in a suit and a hat, surrounded by fifty other white guys in suits and hats. It’s not hard to sneak past some casual acquaintances with that sort of camouflage. I suspect more than a few people recognized him once he drew attention to himself in the middle of a press conference about the murder of a US president (ninja!), but at that point, I don’t think too many cops are going to want to make a big scene of ejecting him, and incidentally drawing attention to how they screwed up by letting him in in the first place.
Actually I brought that up too earlier - how could nobody in the garage that day notice him or find his presence suspicious but at the moment of the shooting several yelled “Jack!!” They clearly would have recognized him a minute earlier but didn’t for whatever reason.
There are a couple of loosely related topics going on in this thread. My intention in providing evidence (e.g. the video links) that Ruby had been seen hanging around the police station for two days prior was to demonstrate that he was there with the premeditated goal of killing Oswald, directly answering CurtC’s statement that he wasn’t. It wasn’t intended to support my admittedly evidence-lacking ‘gut feeling’ that something was very suspicious about Ruby’s role in the entire JFK assassination saga despite the rest of the CT’s being very easy for me to dismiss.
Once the OP had been pretty well hashed out and dismissed, and most other related irrational conspiracy theories had been shot down, I was merely adding that despite it all, something about Ruby’s role in this struck me as very murky, suspicious and it was hard for me to believe that he was just acting as a concerned citizen hoping to spare the first lady from having to attend a trial.
In answer to this, several posts argued basic facts of my statements, like Ruby obviously premeditating the killing and that he had well known ties to organized crime. In providing cites to prove these statements, I wasn’t trying to claim that any of it was also direct evidence of a conspiracy.
I’m agreeing with most of the points Miller is making re: why Ruby was hanging around the station. Especially the, “I don’t think too many cops are going to want to make a big scene of ejecting him, and incidentally drawing attention to how they screwed up by letting him in in the first place.” Ruby was known to the Dallas P.D., and I’ve read that Ruby was a bit of cop hanger-on/fanboy. If LHO had been a witness in, say, a Mob killing case, security would have been a lot tighter, IMHO. It’s just that I think the Dallas P.D. just couldn’t visualize that anyone would try to murder LHO, hence didn’t try to sanitize the area, set-up the transfer to minimize outside access, etc…
As to the, ‘why would you make a crazy dude the centerpiece of your assassination plot’, there’s always the case of Mehmet Ali Agca to consider. If he isn’t nuts, he does a good job of trying to convince people he is. Personally, I think that, if there was a conspiracy, LHO was never intended to survive past the first day. I’m still surprised he wasn’t killed in the Texas Theater. And part of me wonders whether Tippet was supposed to pick him up. There’s plenty of new research though that shows that Tippet was pretty clean, as Dallas P.D. officers went. Just his bad luck to run into a desperate nut.
Another point against the Mob is, has anyone heard of another Mob hit that involved shooting over 30 yds? Or rifles? The closest I’ve read about is the killing of Benjamin Siegel, but that was basically the killer standing in Bugsy’s flower bed and shooting him through the window. I mean, if you believe in a Mob hit, wouldn’t they have picked someone better to bet on than a guy who got worse at shooting during his Marine service? And got him something better than a shitty Carcano carbine? Christ, at least get him a 1903 Springer if you’re not willing to get him a Garand.
The head wound is a little weird. I wrote a postin the Cafe Society thread on the JFK/Mortal Error idea, and don’t want to re-write it here, but 6.5mm Carcano FMJs don’t usually do what the JFK headshot bullet did. An evidently pro-CT writer agrees in this post on the behavior of the ‘head-shot bullet’ and the forensic evidence from the head wound. The HSCA did find when their experts shot skull simulants that they got jacket separation, but you usually don’t get a “lead snowstorm” from that, for that particular bullet and cartridge. The velocity just isn’t high enough to do more than partially fragment the core, not turn it to dust. OTOH, you often do get that behavior from 5.56 x 45 at close range. Still, you have the ‘magic bullet’ CE 399, and bullet fragments in the front seat-ish area (CE 567 and 569) that are definitively 6.5 mm FMJ with four lands/grooves. If they didn’t come from the head wound, how did they get there? There isn’t another impact or wound, IIRC, that can account for them.
I also can’t see an AR going off in the open air right next to, what, 6 other USSS guys in that car, and no one in the car or on the street noticing? Ask some of the former soldiers in this forum how loud a centerfire rifle is when it goes off three feet away from you. The guy next to him’s ears would be ringing for at least the next day. None of the other dudes in the car talked? I can see the USSS not running out and saying hey, ‘we blew the President’s head off because one of our guys can’t figure out how a safety works,’ but the ‘secret’ hasn’t been revealed in all this time?
Agreed, moreover if you really want to with the Oliver Stone theory involving dozens if not hundreds of people from several government agencies, why not simply have Oswald killed while being arrested.
Good question … I was not even aware of this time table. That’s still 16 years from now …
but I also noticed that in all these years no one has included the “G” word on who to blame. The “G” word being God almighty of course.
Just a theory of course 
Lets see now he and his brother (who was also assassinated) both shared the same woman Marilyn Monroe. That’s called adultery with the reported fact of Marilyn calling the white house and informing Jackie that she was going to be the next first lady.
It has been reported that both JFK and Jackie used drugs while in the White House, not just little pills either. When someone told JFK this was wrong he responded with, “I don’t care what it takes to get rid of this pain”
Did you know that as much as he deserved it that the president of South Vietnam had an order signed by President JFK to take him out (reads kill him) just a few weeks before he himself was assassinated?
Did you know that Jack Ruby said right before he died that it was bigger than anything you can imagine, referring to why and how he killed Oswald?
I know many will think this was an organized crime connection due to Jack owning a strip club, but I think it had something to do with voices and voices can be deceiving with the person hearing them thinking it is God, but is really the devil.
Not to mention the Russian connection of Oswald visiting Russia, not to mention that Cuba has been our enemy ever since the Bay of Pigs … through how many administrations?
Perhaps after Castro dies the state department will issue any hidden documents pertaining to that period of time.
Until then I would not discount the fact that God has in the past changed history and could very well be the one to blame, but then again how can you blame God for doing anything wrong?
Like on the day of 911 God did not hear about it at the same time everyone else did on TV that day. Don’t ask me why he didn’t stop it.
I have to add that the order to kill Ngo Dinh Diem was just a rumor:
http://www.shmoop.com/vietnam-war/john-f-kennedy.html
Wow, my mind is blown.