From chapter 5b at patspeer.com
Bobby W. Hargis rode to the right of Martin and to the left of Mrs. Kennedy. (Note: as so many use Hargis' words to support that the fatal bullet impacted on the front of Kennedy's head, or that the limo stopped on Elm Street, I have highlighted quotes touching upon these issues.) (11-22-63 article in the Dallas Times-Herald) ?About halfway down between Houston and the underpass I heard the first shot. It sounded like a real loud firecracker. When I heard the sound, the first thing I thought about was a gunshot. I looked around and about then Governor Connally turned around and looked at the President with a real surprised look on his face?The President bent over to hear what the Governor had to say. When he raised back up was when the President got shot?I felt blood hit me in the face and the Presidential car stopped almost immediately after that?I racked (parked) my motorcycle and jumped off. I ran to the North side of Elm to see if I could find where the bullets were coming from. I don?t think the President was hit with the first shot? I felt that the Governor was shot first." (Undated typescript of interview with Hargis found within the Dallas-Times-Herald's photograph collection, as reported by Richard Trask in Pictures of the Pain, 1994. This is almost certainly the basis for the 11-22 article) "I felt blood hit me in the face, and the presidential car stopped almost immediately after that and stayed stopped about half a second, then took off at a high rate of speed. I racked my cycle and jumped off. I ran to the north side of Elm Street to see if I could find where the bullets came from. I don't think the President got hit with the first shot, but I don't know for sure. When I heard the first shot, it looked like he bent over. I feel that the Governor was shot first. I could be wrong. Right after the first shot, I was trying to look and see if the President got shot. When I saw the look on Connally's face, I knew somebody was shooting at the car...The fatal bullet struck the President in the right side of the head. I noticed the people in the Texas School Book Depository were looking up to see the top. I didn't know if the President stopped under the triple underpass or not. I didn't know for sure if the shots had come from the Book Depository. I thought they might have come from the trestle." (11-23-63 UPI article found in the Fresno Bee) ?I saw flesh flying after the shot, and the president?s hair flew up,? Hargis said, ?I knew he was dead.? (11-23-63 article in the Houston Post) "A Dallas motorcycle officer who was riding two feet from the presidential car described to the Houston Post Friday what he saw when a sniper fired the shots that killed President Kennedy and wounded Gov. John B. Connally. 'When the first rifle bullet spewed into the open limousine,' said Patrolman J.H. Hargis, 'The President bent forward in the car.' Hargis, a nine-year veteran of the force, said the first shot hit the governor. 'Then immediately after that,' Hargis said, 'the second shot was fired, striking the President in the right side of the head.' The Secret Service man driving the car immediately picked up the phone inside the car and said "Let's go to the nearest hospital.' Hargis said he jumped off his motorcycle and began a search of the building from which the shots were fired. 'I knew it was high and from the right. I looked for any sign of activity in the windows, but I didn't see anybody.'" (11-24-63 article in the New York Sunday News) "We turned left onto Elm St. off Houston, about a half block from where it happened. I was right alongside the rear fender on the left side of the President's car, near Mrs. Kennedy. When I heard the first explosion, I knew it was a shot. I thought that Gov. Connally had been hit when I saw him turn toward the President with a real surprised look. The President then looked like he was bent over or that he was leaning toward the Governor, talking to him. As the President straightened back up, Mrs. Kennedy turned toward him, and that was when he got hit in the side of his head, spinning it around. I was splattered with blood. Then I felt something hit me. It could have been concrete or something, but I thought at first I might have been hit. Then I saw the limousine stop, and I parked my motorcycle at the side of the road, got off and drew my gun. Then this Secret Service agent (in the President's car) got his wits about him and they took off. The motorcycle officer on the right side of the car was Jim Chaney. He immediately went forward and announced to the chief that the President had been shot."
(4-3-64 testimony before the Warren Commission, 6H293-296): ?I was next to Mrs. Kennedy when I heard the first shot, and at that time the President bent over, and Governor Connally turned around. He was sitting directly in front of him, and (had) a real shocked and surprised expression on his face?I thought Governor Connally had been shot first, but it looked like the President was bending over to hear what he had to say, and I thought to myself then that Governor Connally, the Governor had been hit, and then as the President raised back up like that the shot that killed him hit him.? (When asked about the blood) "when President Kennedy straightened back up in the car the bullet him in the head, the one that killed him and it seemed like his head exploded, and I was splattered with blood and brain, and kind of bloody water, It wasn't really blood. And at that time the Presidential car slowed down. I heard somebody say 'Get going' or 'get going.'" (When asked about the source of the shots) "Well, at the time it sounded like the shots were right next to me. There wasn't any way in the world I could tell where they were coming from, but at the time there was something in my head that said that they probably could have been coming from the railroad overpass, because I thought since I had got splattered, with blood--I was Just a little back and left of--just a little bit back and left of Mrs. Kennedy, but I didn't know. I had a feeling that it might have been from the Texas Book Depository, and these two places was the primary place that could have been shot from." (8-7-68 interview with Tom Bethel and Al Oser, NARA #180-10096-10005) (When discussing how he could have been sprayed with blood, if the shot came from behind) "Well, that right there is what I've wondered about all along, but see there's ah -- you've got to take into consideration we were moving at the time, and when he got hit all that stuff went like this, and of course I run through it." (When discussing his interpretation of the direction of the shots) "Well, like I say, being that we know that the shot came from the School Book Depository, right then it was kind of hard to say what run through your mind. You know you pick up these little things. You don't know why you do it. You don't know why you do 'em, you just do 'em. It's just kind of instinct. But I had in my mind the shots you couldn't tell where they was coming, but it seemed like the motion of the President's head or his body and the splatter had hit me, it seemed like both the locations needed investigating, and that's why I investigated them. But you couldn't tell, there was -- it looked like a million windows on the Book Depository.You couldn't tell exactly if there was anyone in there with a gun." (When asked if the shots could have come from anywhere) "Uh huh. That's correct." (When asked if he saw the President's head jerk as a response to a bullet's impact) "Yes. Uh huh...To the left forward. Kind of that way...I couldn't see what part of it got hit...If he'd got hit in the rear, I'd have been able to see it. All I saw was just a splash come out on the other side." (a 1971 interview of Hargis by "Whitney," someone working for researcher Fred Newcomb, as presented by Larry Rivera and Jim Fetzer on the Veterans Today website, 4-3-14) (When asked how long the limo stopped) "Oh ? you mean after that first shot?...Only about uh, oh 3-4 seconds. Maybe about 5-6. That?s all...but you won?t find that in the Warren Commission report." (When asked if it said the limo stopped) "Ah no I don?t think it didn?t ? you?ve seen a rolling stop have you? It?s going less than one mile an hour?...Well that?s what he was doing he wasn?t completely stopped or dead still."
The next three reports were posted on the Education Forum by Chris Scally, 6-21-11. (Interview by HSCA investigators James Kelly and Harold Rose on 10-26-77, notes transcribed 11-16-77, JFK document #003300, RIF 180-10107-10243) ""When they turned left on Elm from Houston, he was watching the President's car. Shortly afterwards, he heard a shot. He saw President Kennedy slump forward and Governor Connally turn. He felt at the time that Connally might have been hit and the President was leaning forward to find out what happened. He said the first shot sounded to him like a firecracker. The second shot hit JFK in the head. The presidential car had slowed almost to a stop. After the second shot, the car accelerated rapidly and sped to Parkland Hospital. Hargis said he pulled over to the curb at the grassy knoll. He got off the bike and went up the hill on the grass. He didn't see anyone with a gun, so he went over to the Texas School Book Depository at 411 Elm Street and helped other police officers seal it off." (Interview by HSCA investigator Jack Moriarty dated 8-8-78, notes transcribed 8-23-78, JFK document #014362, RIF 180-10113-10272) "When the first report sounded, he was "about one-third of the way down Elm", having made the last turn from Houston. It sounded like a firecracker, but he was unable to tell where it came from. He looked to his right and saw Connally turning and the President appeared to be leaning forward as if he was trying to hear what the Governor was saying. He had seen JFK lean forward in like manner during the motorcade as he and Connally had been conversing. This time, though, the President had an expression of pain on his face. When the second shot was fired - no doubt gunfire this time as it hit the President's head - the limousine slowed so much it practically stopped and he had to put his feet down to maintain balance. Then the driver accelerated and several motormen started the escort. Hargis remained behind parking his bike where it stood in the left side of Elm now about one half way down the hill. He ran to the grassy knoll and continued until he had reached the top section of the underpass. Finding nothing significant, he returned to his bike - still on the stand with the radio on (and working) and the engine off. He started the bike and drove back up Elm and parked just west of the front door of the TSBD where he joined Brewer as they became part of the effort to seal off this building, although, he adds, at that time no-one was certain just where the shots had come from." (Interview by HSCA investigator Jack Moriarty, 12-29-78, JFK document # 014224, RIF 180-10109-10354). "Reached Mr. Hargis at his new residence... today and developed the following additional information. At the sound of the first shot, he was "in position" - some five to six feet from the left corner of the rear bumper of John F. Kennedy limousine. At the sound of the second shot, he was a bit closer (the limousine slowed and nearly stopped) - perhaps four feet. By the third shot (although he doesn't recall the actual, but saw John F. Kennedy's head explode), he was "almost even with Jackie - no more than two or three feet, if that."
(Interview with NBC broadcast on the 1988 program That Day In November) "It sounded like a firecracker to me and I thought 'Oh Lord, let it be a firecracker. And it looked like the President was bending over, forward. And then when he raised back up is when that second shot hit him in the head." (6-26-95 interview with Mark Oakes, posted on Youtube by Gil Jesus) "There was not three shots; there was only two. I only heard two...The facts was there was two shots--one that hit him in the back and one that hit him in the head. And the one that hit him in the head just busted his head wide open... (On William Greer, the driver of the limo) "That guy slowed down, maybe his orders was to slow down, slowed down almost to a stop." (11-23-95 Dallas Morning News article found in the Herald Journal) "'I'm the only one living who was beside the car,' said Detective Hargis, now 63. 'When he was shot in the head, it splashed up, and I ran into all that brain matter, and all that. It came up and down, all over my uniform." (November 1998 interview with Texas Monthly) ?About ten seconds after we made that left-hand turn, that first shot rang out?I remember Kennedy leaned forward to listen to what he had to say. And then when he raised back up, that second shot hit him in the head. But we figured out that he had got shot?that first bullet had gone through the upper part of his back, well through the seat, and hit Connally?s wrist and glanced off and went into his thigh.? (Interview within an 11-22-03 WBAP radio program found on Youtube) "Yeah I looked toward the President and I thought maybe John Connally was hit because he turned around to look at the President. He had a real surprised look on his face. Kennedy was bending over like he was listening to what Connally had to say. When he raised back up, that second shot hit him in the head. That's what killed him, There was only two shots fired." (11-22-03 article in the Dallas Morning News) ?Hargis differs with the Warren Commission and most eyewitnesses, insisting that only two shots were fired. With the first, ?a thousand million things went through my mind,? he says. After the last, ?there was a plume of blood and brains and plasma. It was just like a fog, and I ran right through it.? (Oral History interview performed for the Sixth Floor Museum, 9-24-10) (When asked if his observations suggested that the fatal shot came from in front of Kennedy) "No." (When asked if it bothered him that people use his statements to suggest there'd been a conspiracy) "Yeah, it does...There was no conspiracy, whatsoever. There was two shots fired, and both shots, we found the bullet." (On the possibility there was a second gunman on the grassy knoll) "To me it sounds ludicrous."
