My Re-Evaluation of Johnny Brewer’s Initial Report of December 6, 1963

[John Iacoletti]

WBAP managed to start recording by 12:50 CST. They were setup to do this, since they were recording the President’s arrival at Love Field just an hour before. WFAA, which was not recording this event, took longer to hook up the recorder. KBOX is another station that comes to mind as starting its recording well after the assassination.

Where did you get the idea that KBOX didn’t record any earlier broadcasts? Just because they are not commonly available now?

[John Tonkovich]

Mr. BELIN - I want to take you back to November 22, 1963. This was the day that President Kennedy was assassinated. How did you find out about the assassination, Mr. Brewer?
Mr. BREWER - We were listening to a transistor radio there in the store, just listening to a regular radio program, and they broke in with the bulletin that the President had been shot. And from then, that is all there was. We listened to all of the events.

JohnM

Who is the "we"?
Why were they not interviewed, as further proof as to the "suspicious " actions of Oswald?
Who was Johnny Brewer? Education? Military background, service, if any?

[Jerry Freeman]

Who was Johnny Brewer? Education? Military background, service, if any?

Mr. BELIN - How old are you, Mr. Brewer?
Mr. BREWER - Twenty-two. ~~
Mr. BELIN - You graduated from high school?
Mr. BREWER - Yes.
Mr. BELIN - Did you go to school after you graduated from high school?
Mr. BREWER - I went to Southwest Texas State Teachers College in San Marcos a year, and a year in Nixon Clay Business College in Austin.
Mr. BELIN - Then what did you do?
Mr. BREWER - I got married and quit school and went to work for Hardy's Shoe Store. I----that was in September, and I got married in December. And I have been with them ever since.
Mr. BELIN - When did you go to work for Hardy's Shoe Store?
Mr. BREWER - In September of 1961.

Now I would still like to know from the detractors...What is there about "moments ago" [reply # 81] that do they not understand?

[Joe Elliott]

So, was Officer E. G. Sabastian correct that the death of an officer was reported by the media? We have no reason to believe he was not correct. Various local news stations did monitor the police radio frequencies. They could have learned of this shooting very early. Radio stations would broadcast news that had not yet been officially confirmed, like the shooting of a Secret Service man at Dealey Plaza, which was not an official report, or even a true report.

He was incorrect. NBC News made no such report. You can hope that he heard it somewhere and you can hope that Brewer heard it somewhere, but that doesn’t make it a fact.

We can’t insist that everything Officer E. G. Sabastian or the KBOX broadcast has to be 100% correct to conclude early media report based on the shooting of Officer Tippit. After all, many early descriptions of the shooting at Dealey Plaza said both the President and the Governor were shot and a Secret Service agent was killed. Well, based on the faulty statement about a Secret Service agent being killed, can we conclude that these reports were a totally erroneous reports, that had nothing to do with the shooting at Dealey Plaza? No way. It would be a huge coincidence that this was a totally erroneous report, and it was just by chance that it included details like the President and the Governor being shot.

Similarly, errors in the initial reports about the Officer Tippit shooting. The report was from NBC News. A detective was shot. The body was taken to Parkland hospital. None of these early errors, which are so common in early news reports, should cause us to conclude that these were just totally erroneous reports that had nothing to do with the shooting of Officer Tippit. And it was just a coincidence that the partly faulty report, of a Dallas police officer, who was a detective, being shot, matched up with the real event of a Dallas police officer, a non-detective, Officer Tippit, being shot.

Officer E. G. Sabastian mistaken statement that “NBC News reports . . .” was an error. But a very easy error to make. Because the local “NBC News” announcers also often broadcast for “ABC News”. So, if WFAA, broadcasting at that time for ABC made such an announcement, it would be an easy error to make. So, there is no reason to conclude that Officer E. G. Sabastian was not relaying to dispatch information he just got over commercial radio.

Do you think that Brewer hallucinated two IBM men?

No. I think he confused different memories from different days. The events of that Friday, and the events of some Saturday, when two employees from IBM, possibility looking at shoes, decided to hang around a bit. It is very easy to scramble memories after 33 years.

Officer E. G. Sabastian is much less likely to be totally mistaken. This was not a 33-year-old memory. This was a recorded real time statement, made just after he heard, or thought he heard, a news flash while patrolling in his squad car.

P. S.

That would imply that you know what time it was when Brewer saw the man in front of his store.

The exact times are not known. Only approximations.

[John Tonkovich]

He was incorrect. NBC News made no such report. You can hope that he heard it somewhere and you can hope that Brewer heard it somewhere, but that doesn’t make it a fact.


We can’t insist that everything Officer E. G. Sabastian or the KBOX broadcast has to be 100% correct to conclude early media report based on the shooting of Officer Tippit. After all, many early descriptions of the shooting at Dealey Plaza said both the President and the Governor were shot and a Secret Service agent was killed. Well, based on the faulty statement about a Secret Service agent being killed, can we conclude that these reports were a totally erroneous reports, that had nothing to do with the shooting at Dealey Plaza? No way. It would be a huge coincidence that this was a totally erroneous report, and it was just by chance that it included details like the President and the Governor being shot.

Similarly, errors in the initial reports about the Officer Tippit shooting. The report was from NBC News. A detective was shot. The body was taken to Parkland hospital. None of these early errors, which are so common in early news reports, should cause us to conclude that these were just totally erroneous reports that had nothing to do with the shooting of Officer Tippit. And it was just a coincidence that the partly faulty report, of a Dallas police officer, who was a detective, being shot, matched up with the real event of a Dallas police officer, a non-detective, Officer Tippit, being shot.

Officer E. G. Sabastian mistaken statement that “NBC News reports . . .” was an error. But a very easy error to make. Because the local “NBC News” announcers also often broadcast for “ABC News”. So, if WFAA, broadcasting at that time for ABC made such an announcement, it would be an easy error to make. So, there is no reason to conclude that Officer E. G. Sabastian was not relaying to dispatch information he just got over commercial radio.



No. I think he confused different memories from different days. The events of that Friday, and the events of some Saturday, when two employees from IBM, possibility looking at shoes, decided to hang around a bit. It is very easy to scramble memories after 33 years.

Officer E. G. Sabastian is much less likely to be totally mistaken. This was not a 33-year-old memory. This was a recorded real time statement, made just after he heard, or thought he heard, a news flash while patrolling in his squad car.



The exact times are not known. Only approximations.

Brewer said "we" in 1964.

[Martin Weidmann]

We can’t insist that everything Officer E. G. Sabastian or the KBOX broadcast has to be 100% correct to conclude early media report based on the shooting of Officer Tippit. After all, many early descriptions of the shooting at Dealey Plaza said both the President and the Governor were shot and a Secret Service agent was killed. Well, based on the faulty statement about a Secret Service agent being killed, can we conclude that these reports were a totally erroneous reports, that had nothing to do with the shooting at Dealey Plaza? No way. It would be a huge coincidence that this was a totally erroneous report, and it was just by chance that it included details like the President and the Governor being shot.

Similarly, errors in the initial reports about the Officer Tippit shooting. The report was from NBC News. A detective was shot. The body was taken to Parkland hospital. None of these early errors, which are so common in early news reports, should cause us to conclude that these were just totally erroneous reports that had nothing to do with the shooting of Officer Tippit. And it was just a coincidence that the partly faulty report, of a Dallas police officer, who was a detective, being shot, matched up with the real event of a Dallas police officer, a non-detective, Officer Tippit, being shot.

Officer E. G. Sabastian mistaken statement that “NBC News reports . . .” was an error. But a very easy error to make. Because the local “NBC News” announcers also often broadcast for “ABC News”. So, if WFAA, broadcasting at that time for ABC made such an announcement, it would be an easy error to make. So, there is no reason to conclude that Officer E. G. Sabastian was not relaying to dispatch information he just got over commercial radio.

It seems you either missed or ignored my reply in the "Unsung Heroes" thread, so here are two parts of it again;

If Sabastian had heard a report on the radio he would have known that it was Tippit, or at least a police officer, who was DOA, but he clearly did not know that because he asked the dispatcher "That the officer".

Another point of interest is this. Let's say you're right and Sabastian did hear it on the radio at 1.25 or just before that. According to the official narrative, Tippit was allegedly shot at 1.14/1.15 and picked up by an ambulance at 1.18. The drive to Methodist Hospital from 10th/Patton is about 4 minutes, which puts the arrival of the ambulance at 1.22. There were no reporters with the ambulance, only Davenport's police car which started following the ambulance en route. Back in those days reporters had to call in stories by phone, so for the story to be broadcast at no later than 1.25, there were only three minutes, after the ambulance arrival, available for a reporter to get to Methodist Hospital, talk to a doctor, find a phone and call it in and get the story on the air..... Not very likely... Even less likely would be that a reporter calling in from Methodist Hospital would report to the station that he was at Parkland Hospital.

Now, if Tippit was really shot at around 1.06 or 1.07 it would be a different matter, but I don't think you want to be having that discussion....

In any event, I put it to you that if Tippit was indeed declared DOA at 1.22, there was no physical possibility for a report about his death being broadcast 3 minutes after the event.

Officer E. G. Sabastian is much less likely to be totally mistaken. This was not a 33-year-old memory. This was a recorded real time statement, made just after he heard, or thought he heard, a news flash while patrolling in his squad car.

The exact times are not known. Only approximations.

First of all, you are only speculating that Sabastian heard a news flash in his squad car. There is no evidence for that. And secondly, as I already stated in the "Unsung Heroes" thread;

DPD recordings are likely not correct, as per J.C. Bowles, the man in charge of the DPD dispatchers;

A master clock on the telephone room wall was connected to the City Hall system. This clock reported "official" time. Within the dispatcher's office there were numerous other time giving and time recording devices, both in the telephone room and in the radio room. Telephone operators and radio operators were furnished "Simplex" clocks. Because the hands often worked loose, they indicated the incorrect time. However, their purpose was to stamp the time, day and date on incoming calls. While they were reliable at this, they were not synchronized as stated in the Committee report. Therefore, it was not uncommon for the time stamped on calls to be a minute to two ahead or behind the "official" time shown on the master clock. Accordingly, at "exactly" 10:10, various clocks could be stamping from 10:08 to 10:12, for example. When clocks were as much as a minute or so out of synchronization it was normal procedure to make the needed adjustments. During busy periods this was not readily done.

In addition to the times stamped on calls by telephone operators, the radio operators stamped the "time" as calls were dispatched, and the "time" that officers completed an assignment and returned to service. Radio operators were also furnished with 12-hour digital clocks to facilitate their time references when they were not using call sheets containing stamped time. These digital clocks were not synchronized with any time standard. Therefore, the time "actual" and time "broadcast" could easily be a minute or so apart.

[John Tonkovich]

So, if Oswald was roaming the streets of Oak Cliff, acting "suspiciously", why didn't anyone but Johnny Brewer notice? And also follow him, call the police, warn their neighbors?
Only Johnny Brewer - and perhaps those with him, though we'll never know, because they were never identified, nor interviewed- spotted this dangerous double murderer.

Every time one looks into the details of this case, one finds a stunning lack of follow through.
That doesn't mean some conspiracy on the part of the DPD and the FBI, just a desire for a quick, easy uncomplicated solution.

[Bill Chapman]

So, if Oswald was roaming the streets of Oak Cliff, acting "suspiciously", why didn't anyone but Johnny Brewer notice? And also follow him, call the police, warn their neighbors?
Only Johnny Brewer - and perhaps those with him, though we'll never know, because they were never identified, nor interviewed- spotted this dangerous double murderer.

Every time one looks into the details of this case, one finds a stunning lack of follow through.
That doesn't mean some conspiracy on the part of the DPD and the FBI, just a desire for a quick, easy uncomplicated solution.

Oswald himself made it a quick, easy uncomplicated solution.