From the chronicles of Dale Myers----
On March 3, 1983, Jack Tatum told how he came to be on Tenth Street and witnessed Officer J.D. Tippit’s encounter with Oswald:
“I lived in Oak Cliff at the time. It was before Christmas, and I had gone into a jewelry store to purchase some gifts for my wife – a watch and a ring – and was coming back around the corner to go to another shop there on Jefferson, and just happened by and saw the police officer stopping this individual…” [1]
Asked where the jewelry store was located, Tatum said, “It was Gordon’s Jewelry, in that same block that I was in, I was just making a – I hooked a left and turned and come back and hooked another right. We heard the news of the president being shot over the television that was in the jewelry store at the time.” [2]
Tatum didn’t explain at the time why he would have needed to cut through the adjoining residential neighborhood to get to “another shop on Jefferson” (couldn’t he just make a U-turn on the wide boulevard?). I assumed at the time that the shop that Tatum was referring to was located somewhere west of the Jefferson and Denver intersection. An explanation for his detour through the residential area adjoining Jefferson Boulevard eventually surfaced three years later. In the spring of 1986, Katie A. Pearson, a 27-year-old researcher at London Weekend Television, contacted both Jack Ray Tatum and former House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) investigator John Moriarty, Jr., and questioned them as part of the pre-production for the television program, “On Trial: Lee Harvey Oswald,” which was subsequently broadcast in the U.S. on Showtime on November 21-22, 1986. During a May 13, 1986, interview, Tatum told Pearson that on the day of the assassination, he had some hours owed him and was allowed to take the afternoon off. “My boss said why [don’t] I go downtown to photograph Kennedy? As I was going downtown, there was an awful lot of crowds and cars and I decided not to go. So, I went to Oak Cliff, where I lived at the time. I stopped at Gordon’s Jewelers on Jefferson and purchased a watch and ring on [layaway] for my wife. While I was in the store, there was a bulletin come over the TV in the jeweler’s store saying Kennedy had been shot. I was planning to go from there to a friend of mine who owned a bar, Hank Reiser, at the Mardi Gras.” [3]
The bar owner, Harold F. “Hank” Reiser, age 50, lived at 311 E. 12th, Apt. 112, just around the corner from the bar, with his wife, “Honey”. [4]
Tatum told Pearson that he had to make a detour to get to the bar, which was also on Jefferson, but some distance west. Instead of making a U-turn on Jefferson, he had to turn left on Denver and back track to avoid a central island. [5] In a diagram provided to Pearson, Tatum located Gordon’s Jewelry store in the 500 block of east Jefferson Boulevard, just west of Denver and Club Mardi Gras on E. Jefferson, just east of Patton. [6] However, Tatum’s 1986 recollection was in error. The only Gordon’s Quality Jewelry store in Oak Cliff in 1963 was actually located at 330 W. Jefferson Blvd., between Bishop and Madison – seven blocks west of the location specified by Tatum.
Tatum’s recalled location for Club Mardi Gras was also in error. The bar was actually located at 308 E. Jefferson Blvd. near Storey – two blocks west of the location that Tatum also identified in the diagram.Given the true locations of the two establishments, Tatum’s explanation of how he ended up on Tenth Street doesn’t seem to ring true.
One thing that I am curious about is if Tatum was a "photographer" possessing camera loaded with film in hand...why didn't he take any pictures of the Tippit saga? I mean gee..he was there and major stuff was ensuing!
Now, I am not suggesting that shooting pictures of the shooting should have been the first thing on someone's mind. But still..somewhere along the line the photographic instinct should have come impulsively at some time.
Tatum was a photographer for Baylor Hospital. [I didn't know that hospitals retained photographers on their staff]
Tatum's "boss" sent him out to take pictures...Tatum came back empty handed.
Prime witness Jack Tatum was not called to testify before the Warren Commission. Very little is mentioned about him in the HSCA Report [after investigators went to some length to track him down]~
Mentioned in another post...from Jack Tatum's affidavit--
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/testimony/tatum.htm I was driving XXXX north on Denver and stopped at 10th St. when I first saw the squad car and men walking on the sidewalk near the squad car. .................. Both the squad car and this young white male were coming in my direction(East on 10th Street). At the time I was just approaching the squad car, I noticed this young white male with both hands in the pockets of his zippered jacket leaning over the passenger side of the squad car. This young white male was looking into the squad car from the passenger side
I heard three shots in rapid (illegible)I went right through the intersection, stopped my car and turned to look back. I then saw the officer lying on the street and saw this young white man standing near the front of the squad car. Next. this man with a gun in his hand ran toward the back of the squad car, but instead of running away he stepped into the street and shot the police officer who was lying in the street.
If accurate ...this statement demonstrates that the killer went entirely out of his way to execute the cop who was already down and apparently sufficiently wounded as to be any threat to escape.
Also...who exactly were these men that he said were
walking on the sidewalk and whatever happened to them?
