The "smirk"

[Jerry Freeman]

Not sure if it is entirely true but I had heard that Elvis had been watching TV when they had brought Oswald out and Mr Presley saw that smirk and put a bullet into the television ...freaking out his manager and others who were watching with him.

[Jerry Freeman]

No, Oswald's smirk ONLY proves he had a smirk
Now stop crying

Huh? Your senility may be fast approaching.. old man

[Charles Collins]

Not sure if it is entirely true but I had heard that Elvis had been watching TV when they had brought Oswald out and Mr Presley saw that smirk and put a bullet into the television ...freaking out his manager and others who were watching with him.

There was a lot emotional reactions to the assassination. Ruby’s emotional reaction to shoot Oswald wasn’t from out in left field somewhere. Here are words written by Wes Wise (from “When the News Went Live”) describing the scene outside the Dallas County Jail. They were awaiting the arrival of LHO being transferred there on 11/24/63:

““Ladies and gentlemen,” the sheriff announced, “Lee Harvey Oswald has been shot and is on his way to Parkland Hospital.” Like an explosion, a blood-curdling cheer and resounding applause erupted from the crowd. All the pent-up emotions of Dallas, Texas, seemed to emerge at that moment: hurt, confusion, fear, disgust and, most of all, indescribable sadness and sorrow for a fallen president, for his lovely wife and two beautiful children. I stood there in the middle of the street, dead microphone in hand, shaking my head.”

[Charles Collins]

Could have been a crowd response to a yahoo doing a rebel-yell and waving his Stetson Texas-style when the news was heard. Could be some didn't hear the radio at all and didn't known at first what it was about.

Sort of like the media getting wrong the "mocking" of Trump at the NATO celebration.

Here’s Wes Wise’s words that precede what I posted above:

“Something’s happened!” someone shouted from The Blue Goose. [The Blue Goose was the nickname of their remote broadcast truck] “Stand by!” As often happens at a time like this, the reporter on the scene knows less than the crew behind the scene. Slowly, agonizingly, it trickled down to me that Oswald had been seriously wounded in the basement of the city jail. Sheriff Decker walked out and confirmed the startling news. The crowd, observing the confusion on the street, could not comprehend. “We don’t know yet who did it,” the sheriff mumbled. “I guess I better tell these people.” He walked into the middle of the street and faced the crowd, now three or four deep along the curb. Then came one of the most memorable of all my experiences of that unbelievable weekend.”

So it appears that the crowd learned about it from Decker’s announcement and reacted to it as Wes Wise describes in my earlier post!

[John Iacoletti]

So, going by my layman's memory of what I learned many years ago in school:

The U.S. Supreme Court, or any part of the judicial branch, does not create laws. It only interprets laws which are created by the legislative branch, and sometimes decides whether or not they violate the Constitution. Therefore, the Supreme Court rulings in 1961 or 1968, for example, did not change the law, they clarified the intent of the law. Based on this, it appears to me that the Terry stop (which had been common practice for a long time in 1963) was not illegal.

Here’s the thing. Even if you want to argue that a “Terry stop” was constitutional before the Supreme Court majority invented it, what the Dallas police did to Oswald did not qualify.

“We merely hold today that, where a police officer observes unusual conduct which leads him reasonably to conclude in light of his experience that criminal activity may be afoot and that the persons with whom he is dealing may be armed and presently dangerous, where, in the course of investigating this behavior, he identifies himself as a policeman and makes reasonable inquiries, and where nothing in the initial stages of the encounter serves to dispel his reasonable fear for his own or others' safety, he is entitled for the protection of himself and others in the area to conduct a carefully limited search of the outer clothing of such persons in an attempt to discover weapons which might be used to assault him.” — Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968), (emphasis mine).

No police officer observed Oswald or the other two men in the theater engaging in any unusual conduct prior to being detained and searched, nor did any police officer make reasonable inquiries first.

And in any case, probable cause was absolutely necessary to make an arrest for murder.

[Charles Collins]

Here’s the thing. Even if you want to argue that a “Terry stop” was constitutional before the Supreme Court majority invented it, what the Dallas police did to Oswald did not qualify.

“We merely hold today that, where a police officer observes unusual conduct which leads him reasonably to conclude in light of his experience that criminal activity may be afoot and that the persons with whom he is dealing may be armed and presently dangerous, where, in the course of investigating this behavior, he identifies himself as a policeman and makes reasonable inquiries, and where nothing in the initial stages of the encounter serves to dispel his reasonable fear for his own or others' safety, he is entitled for the protection of himself and others in the area to conduct a carefully limited search of the outer clothing of such persons in an attempt to discover weapons which might be used to assault him.” — Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968), (emphasis mine).

No police officer observed Oswald or the other two men in the theater engaging in any unusual conduct prior to being detained and searched, nor did any police officer make reasonable inquiries first.

And in any case, probable cause was absolutely necessary to make an arrest for murder.

I will come back to your argument. But first I would like to know if you think that the police acted “illegally” when they stopped Hamby before he sprinted across the library lawn. Just this part, I already know what you have said about what happened after this point in time.

Here is a quote from “With Malice” by Dale Myers:

Hamby swung his car south off
Jefferson onto Denver and nosed into a dirt parking area for library employees. As he climbed out of his car, Hamby noticed a crowd of policemen near the intersection of Jefferson and Marsalis. He thought there had been a car wreck on the corner. Suddenly, two plainclothesmen appeared out of nowhere and grabbed him. Adrian D. Hamby in 1963. Courtesy of Adrian Hamby “Sir, what are you doing in this area,” one of them demanded. “I work here at the library. I’m a page,” Hamby replied unsure if this was some kind of joke. “Well listen,” the man replied. “Someone just shot and killed a police officer in the vicinity and we think the suspect is loose. Do us a favor. Go into the library, get a hold of management, tell them to lock the doors and not let anyone inside until we secure the area.”

[John Iacoletti]

I will come back to your argument. But first I would like to know if you think that the police acted “illegally” when they stopped Hamby before he sprinted across the library lawn. Just this part, I already know what you have said about what happened after this point in time.

Here is a quote from “With Malice” by Dale Myers:

Hamby swung his car south off
Jefferson onto Denver and nosed into a dirt parking area for library employees. As he climbed out of his car, Hamby noticed a crowd of policemen near the intersection of Jefferson and Marsalis. He thought there had been a car wreck on the corner. Suddenly, two plainclothesmen appeared out of nowhere and grabbed him. Adrian D. Hamby in 1963. Courtesy of Adrian Hamby “Sir, what are you doing in this area,” one of them demanded. “I work here at the library. I’m a page,” Hamby replied unsure if this was some kind of joke. “Well listen,” the man replied. “Someone just shot and killed a police officer in the vicinity and we think the suspect is loose. Do us a favor. Go into the library, get a hold of management, tell them to lock the doors and not let anyone inside until we secure the area.”

There's nothing illegal about asking questions.  It depends if they physically grabbed him at that point or not.  That's assault.  This part of Hamby's story that Myers claimed Hamby told him in a 1997 interview doesn't make much sense.  Who were these "plainclothesman"? And if they were DPD, then why did the DPD later order Hamby back outside, throw him against a wall and frisk him?  Did he somehow become more "suspicious" after entering the library?

[Charles Collins]

There's nothing illegal about asking questions.  It depends if they physically grabbed him at that point or not.  That's assault.  This part of Hamby's story that Myers claimed Hamby told him in a 1997 interview doesn't make much sense.  Who were these "plainclothesman"? And if they were DPD, then why did the DPD later order Hamby back outside, throw him against a wall and frisk him?  Did he somehow become more "suspicious" after entering the library?

Actually, it was his sprinting across the lawn before he entered the library. Here is more from Myers’ book:

“Poe gave Walker the suspect’s description. Poe’s partner, Leonard E. Jez, had been stranded at Tenth and Patton ever since Sergeant Hill had commandeered their squad car. Officer Jez asked Walker if he could ride with him. The patrolman agreed, and Jez climbed into Walker’s squad car—the newsman riding shotgun. The three started eastbound on Tenth, then south on Denver.
Just as Patrolman C.T. Walker completed the turn something caught his eye. “I saw a white male running east across the lawn of the library,” Walker told authorities. “I was still about three-fourths of a block from Jefferson, and he was even south of Jefferson—over a block from me. I put out a broadcast on the air that there was a person fitting the description running in the front of the library.”
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They spotted a side entrance to the library basement. The officers drew their weapons in anticipation of checking it out. Just inside the door, young Adrian Hamby was getting curious.  “I had gone to the basement door, which was about three steps below ground level, to look out the door,” Hamby said. “And when I did, there was about twenty or thirty police officers out there with rifles, pistols—you name it—and they were pointing it at me and told me to come out with my hands up. And I got scared and closed the door.”
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Detective Marvin A. Buhk, one of the many officers who had responded to the call for help at the library, recalled a “Secret Service man” straightening out the mess Hamby found himself in. In a later report, Detective Buhk wrote, “One of the Secret Service men stated the person who came out of the basement with the others was not the suspect and that he had already talked to him a few minutes previously.”

So it was a couple of suspicious actions by Hamby that caused the police to react the way they did. And a lack of communication from whoever was in plainclothes.