Warren Commission (15 of 26): Hearings Vol. XV (of 15)United States. Warren Commission
History
Warren Commission (15 of 26): Hearings Vol. XV (of 15)
United States. Warren Commission
Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963 -- Assassination; Oswald, Lee Harvey
Captain FRITZ. No. I am not sure that I spoke to him about this. I did
speak to some of the officers about giving us some help in the hall,
because the people were crowding us. They did assign two uniform men
to my door. I didn’t have to ask for that. Some of the chiefs did that.
They could no doubt see what I could see. They assigned two men to my
door, and kept the door locked, and we only admitted the officers and
people who should come in. Then they supplied some other officers to
move the people down the hall so we could get back, because we had to
go back and forth to the chief’s office or to the elevator.
Mr. HUBERT. Were you aware on Sunday the 24th that there was quite a
crowd of people in the basement, which was a part of the transfer route
that was being planned?
Captain FRITZ. I hadn’t been down there in the basement. I had been, as
I told you before, real busy in my office, and we had been continuing
our questioning in company with some Federal officers from the Secret
Service, and FBI, and at one time the marshal was over there, and some
of the postal authorities, trying to finish up our investigation as
fast as we could, and I hadn’t been down in the basement. But I had
been down there either the early morning or the night before, and I
had seen all the big lights set up in the basement and in the basement
door, so when the chief told me about the transfer, I told him we ought
to get rid of the lights and get the people out of the door that would
interfere with our getting to the car for the transfer. After I was
late getting started the chief came back to my office and asked if we
were ready to transfer him, I told him “When the security downstairs
was ready, we were ready.” And he said, “The lights have been moved
back and the people have been moved back in the basement, back of the
rail, and the other people have been moved across the street.” Which
would have given us ample room to get into the car and get rolling with
him. Once we had gotten into the car, we would have been all right.
Mr. HUBERT. Were you kept advised as to the plan of transfer on Sunday
morning?
Captain FRITZ. On what part of the plan, please?
Mr. HUBERT. The route and the vehicles.
Captain FRITZ. No, sir; I was not until the chief came to my office. I
suggested we move him in an unmarked car instead of that money wagon,
and the chief agreed with me, but as far as setting up the protection
in the basement and getting the money wagon, I had nothing to do with
that. I don’t know where that arrangement was made.
Mr. HUBERT. Your suggestion in regard to the crowd in the basement was
really with reference to the lights and so forth?
Captain FRITZ. The lights and the people, of course. Those people were
in our way every time we moved that man from my office to the jail and
back. We had to push him and pull him through the crowd.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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