Warren Commission (07 of 26): Hearings Vol. VII (of 15)United States. Warren Commission
History
Warren Commission (07 of 26): Hearings Vol. VII (of 15)
United States. Warren Commission
Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963 -- Assassination; Oswald, Lee Harvey
We were trying to get together to decide who was going to make the
offense report and get all the little technicalities out of the way
when a detective named Richard Stovall and another one, G. F. Rose,
came up, and the four of us were standing when Captain Fritz walked in.
He walked up to Rose and Stovall and made the statement to them, "Go
get a search warrant and go out to some address on Fifth Street," and
I don't recall the actual street number, in Irving, and "pick up a man
named Lee Oswald."
And I asked the captain why he wanted him, and he said, "Well, he was
employed down at the Book Depository and he had not been present for a
roll call of the employees."
And we said, "Captain, we will save you a trip," or words to that
effect, "Because there he sits."
And with that, we relinquished our prisoner to the homicide and robbery
bureau, to Captain Fritz.
Walker, Bentley, Lyons, Carroll, and I knew that the prisoner had
received a laceration and bruises while effecting his arrest, and that
an officer had been scratched while effecting the arrest, and that
Bentley had sprained an ankle, and Lyons had sprained an ankle while
effecting the arrest--they were fixing to have to make a whole bushel
basket of reports--we adjourned to the personnel office, which was
further down the hall from homicide and I sat down and started to try
to organize the first report on the arrest.
I originally had the heading on it, "Injuries sustained by suspect
while effecting his arrest in connection with the murder of Officer
J. D. Tippit," and a few minutes later Captain Westbrook came in the
office and said that our suspect had admitted being a Communist. This
is strictly hearsay. I did not hear it myself.
He himself also said a few minutes later he had previously been in the
Marine Corps, had a dishonorable discharge, had been to Russia, and
had had some trouble with the police in New Orleans for passing out
pro-Castro literature.
This still is all hearsay because I didn't actually hear it firsthand
myself. And at about this point Captain Westbrook suggested that I
change the heading of my report to include arrest of the suspect in
the assassination of the President and in the murder of Officer J. D.
Tippit, which I did.
I originally wrote the report for Bob Carroll's signature and for my
signature, and left it with the captain to be typed while we moved over
in another office to get a cup of coffee and sort of calm down and
recap the events.
By then McDonald was there, and we had added some information that he
could give us such as the information about "This is it." Which the
suspect allegedly said as he came into contact with him.
The exact location of the officers and who was there on the original
arrest and everything, and we were waiting around for the secretary to
finish the report.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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