The Floor-Laying Crew

[Alan Ford]

Now how did all these guys "get down the stairs unnoticed" since we are told that was impossible in Oswald's case.

~Yawn~

Already addressed in Reply #11 on this thread

[John Iacoletti]

I posted a photo taken from near the west window looking back towards the east. I showed that there are stacks of boxes between someone sitting on the cart in the third aisle and someone standing back from the west window (as far as Rowland describes) which would have blocked BRW’s view of the man with the rifle. It is a DPD photo which you should have seen many times.

I believe this is the photo you're talking about, but I don't understand your argument.  The window closest to the camera is the Rowland's gunman window.  There is a clear line of sight up to the boxes surrounding the so-called sniper's nest.

[Charles Collins]

I believe this is the photo you're talking about, but I don't understand your argument.  The window closest to the camera is the Rowland's gunman window.  There is a clear line of sight up to the boxes surrounding the so-called sniper's nest.

The camera position appears to be about 2-feet from the window. Rowland said the man with the rifle appeared to be considerably further back (north) from that window. The cart that BRW was sitting on is further back (north) than where the south end of the rows of stacks of boxes are (it isn’t in the clear line of sight that you describe, it is in the third north/south aisle from the east end of the building). The photo clearly shows high stacks of boxes between BRW’s sitting position and Rowland’s description of the man with the rifle’s position.

In other words, neither BRW or the man with the rifle were in the ~2’ clear area next to the south wall.


I have drawn a red X on some of the boxes that would be between BRW (sitting on the cart between the rows of stacked boxes that form the third aisle) and the position of the man with the rifle that is described by Arnold Rowland.

[Zeon Mason]

Does anyone agree with me that no professional assassin would go up to a window and stand there holding his rifle at the ready , risking being seen before the motorcade has arrived?

Would not a professional probably have a radio himself to know when the limo is about enter Dealey plaza?

Would not a professional probably check out the floor first BEFORE he gets his rifle, so in case there is someone on that floor, at least the professional will not be appearing obviously as a shooter.

So whomever was seen  by  Arnold Rowland at the SW window, was probably NOT a professional gunman.

A few alternatives:

1. The gunman was Oswald who wasn’t a professional , didn’t have a radio, miscalculated that the limo was arriving at 12:20, prematurely hastily went up to the 6th floor , got his assembled ( earlier morning) rifle , after he had been seen at about 12:12 by Carolyn Arnold in the 2nd floor lunchroom. He then went straight to the SW window anticipating the limo possibly about to enter Dealey plaza. He then became aware of Williams not by LOS but by HEARING the movement of the roller that Williams was sitting on. Oswald then backed away from the SW window and went around to the NE corner of room and maybe even down part way the east aisle towards the SE window where he just waited. He heard and possibly glimpsed BRW getting on the elevator at approximately 12:24. Oswald then in 1 minute (about 80 ft from the SE window) was able to place a box on the window ledge before the Bronson film stared at 12:25. He sat down on the box next to the pipes and was able to hide behind the wall just left of the window so that he was not in LOS of the Hughes camera angle. he MAY however have been in partial LOS of Howard Brennan.

2. Oswald was NOT the designated shooter, but was being fooled to believe he was to display a rifle at the SW window to test security personnel and if they could spot him in only about a 10-15 sec display at the window. After doing this deed and then hiding the MC rifle which he also was fooled to believe was a test, he left the 6th floor, went down to 1st floor and was seen by Carolyn Arnold at 12:25 in the front lobby. He then went out to watch the P. Parade about 12:28, standing somewhere on the front steps.

3. Oswald was in the 2nd floor lunchroom at 12:15  when spotted by Carolyn Arnold, therefore the rifleman at the SW window at 12:15 was some other person, who reacted in the same way as postulated in option 1 above. This person was also probably NOT a professional and may have been some other TSBD employee such as Jack Dougherty with questionable alibi. The MC rifle was pre planted to frame Oswald.

4. Alans new theory: A crew of conspirators secured the 6th floor and did something there which Alan will eventually let us know and will have an explanation for why one of them thought it necessary to display prematurely, a rifle at the SW window at 12:15

[Alan Ford]

Does anyone agree with me that no professional assassin would go up to a window and stand there holding his rifle at the ready , risking being seen before the motorcade has arrived?

Would not a professional probably have a radio himself to know when the limo is about enter Dealey plaza?

Would not a professional probably check out the floor first BEFORE he gets his rifle, so in case there is someone on that floor, at least the professional will not be appearing obviously as a shooter.

So whomever was seen  by  Arnold Rowland at the SW window, was probably NOT a professional gunman.

A few alternatives:

1. The gunman was Oswald who wasn’t a professional , didn’t have a radio, miscalculated that the limo was arriving at 12:20, prematurely hastily went up to the 6th floor , got his assembled ( earlier morning) rifle , after he had been seen at about 12:12 by Carolyn Arnold in the 2nd floor lunchroom. He then went straight to the SW window anticipating the limo possibly about to enter Dealey plaza. He then became aware of Williams not by LOS but by HEARING the movement of the roller that Williams was sitting on. Oswald then backed away from the SW window and went around to the NE corner of room and maybe even down part way the east aisle towards the SE window where he just waited. He heard and possibly glimpsed BRW getting on the elevator at approximately 12:24. Oswald then in 1 minute (about 80 ft from the SE window) was able to place a box on the window ledge before the Bronson film stared at 12:25. He sat down on the box next to the pipes and was able to hide behind the wall just left of the window so that he was not in LOS of the Hughes camera angle. he MAY however have been in partial LOS of Howard Brennan.

2. Oswald was NOT the designated shooter, but was being fooled to believe he was to display a rifle at the SW window to test security personnel and if they could spot him in only about a 10-15 sec display at the window. After doing this deed and then hiding the MC rifle which he also was fooled to believe was a test, he left the 6th floor, went down to 1st floor and was seen by Carolyn Arnold at 12:25 in the front lobby. He then went out to watch the P. Parade about 12:28, standing somewhere on the front steps.

3. Oswald was in the 2nd floor lunchroom at 12:15  when spotted by Carolyn Arnold, therefore the rifleman at the SW window at 12:15 was some other person, who reacted in the same way as postulated in option 1 above. This person was also probably NOT a professional and may have been some other TSBD employee such as Jack Dougherty with questionable alibi. The MC rifle was pre planted to frame Oswald.

4. Alans new theory: A crew of conspirators secured the 6th floor and did something there which Alan will eventually let us know and will have an explanation for why one of them thought it necessary to display prematurely, a rifle at the SW window at 12:15

The man didn't go up to the window. He stood several feet back from it. Mrs. Carolyn Walther saw two men at a window, one of whom had a gun. These guys were pretty brazen. Perhaps they counted on any folks who noticed them assuming they were there to protect Pres. Kennedy. (In which case they were right: that's exactly what Mr. Rowland and Mrs. Walther thought.)

Mr. Williams was not the bald "elderly Negro" in a bright plaid shirt seen by Mr. Rowland in the SN window.

A lone wolf employee-gunman would not have chosen the sixth floor to shoot from. It offered the best seat in the house and would thus (under normal conditions) be a likely vantage point of choice for several employees wishing to watch the P. Parade.

How on earth does your fantasy Mr. Oswald know your fantasy Mr. Williams is going to leave? Why not just slip up to the seventh floor?

And the idea of a crew of men staying up on the sixth floor through the lunch break does not from come me but from Mr. Harold Norman. His information solves the mystery of why not a single employee went to watch the P. Parade from six-----------the only in-use floor not occupied by any employee-spectators. Luck? I don't think so.

 

[Alan Ford]

Mr. BALL. At that time didn't you know that one of your officers, Baker, had seen Oswald on the second floor?
Mr. FRITZ. They told me about that down at the bookstore; I believe Mr. Truly or someone told me about it, told me they had met him--I think he told me, person who told me about, I believe told me that they met him on the stairway, but our investigation shows that he actually saw him in a lunchroom

Captain Fritz's flustered word salad tells the story here: down at the bookstore we were told that a worker had been met on the stairway, but it took an investigation afterwards to establish that no, actually it was in a lunchroom 

Here's Mr. Truly and Officer Baker on one afterwards:



No doubt Officer Baker has mentioned to law enforcement what he saw. And Mr. Truly knows he has a sighting of a man he vouched for as a worker---------a man whom the officer caught walking away from the rear stairway several floors up the building----------to explain away in a manner that is not lethal to himself.

Enter Mr. Oswald......................

 

Now!

As Mr. Dan O'Meara has convincingly demonstrated, the fact that witnesses agree that the white man at the SN window was wearing an open-necked light-colored shirt/t-shirt effectively rules out the kooky theory that Mr. Oswald was that man. As Mr. O'Meara points out, this leaves only one possible alternative candidate from the pool of Depository employees: Mr. Jack Dougherty.

But Mr. Harold Norman's information about an external flooring crew, who continued working through the employees' lunch break, relieves us of having to restrict our candidate pool to Depository men. Which is a very good thing, as Mr. Dougherty is a most improbable match for the witness descriptions. He was a great big hulky guy, not slender like the man described.

My money is still on this light-brown-jacket, LHO-resembling guy with the really odd bald spot:



: as the man
-------------seen at the SN window (sans jacket) by Messrs. Brennan, Fischer, Edwards, as well as Mr. Amos ("white spot") Euins
-------------caught by Officer Baker walking away from the rear stairway several floors up
-------------seen by Deputy Sheriff Roger Craig running down the grass and getting into a Rambler driven by a dark-complected man
-------------described by Tippit witnesses (tan jacket)

Was this man part of the ostensible floor-laying crew?

 

[Alan Ford]

No doubt Officer Baker has mentioned to law enforcement what he saw. And Mr. Truly knows he has a sighting of a man he vouched for as a worker---------a man whom the officer caught walking away from the rear stairway several floors up the building----------to explain away in a manner that is not lethal to himself.

Enter Mr. Oswald......................

Well! Up to this I have explored the scenario where Mr. Truly (and Mr. Shelley) have no foreknowledge of the plot. They have brought the outside contractors in in good faith.

But what if they are not innocent of involvement? What might that scenario look like?

Let us add into the mix another element: Mr. Oswald is being knowingly set up.

OK. The plan might work as follows:

1. The outside crew is brought in, but an arrangement is made to have them be helped out with the floor-laying by several internal employees
2. The habit of the outside crew of working through the lunch hour protects the internal employees: making it unlikely that any will watch the P. Parade on 11/22 from the sixth floor, and thus be on the hook for involvement--------each will have an alibi
3. The crucial bit: after the assassination, the real reason for assigning internal employees to help out will come into play------------they can take all the credit for all the floor-laying project, evidence for which will be apparent to the investigators who come on to the sixth floor. I.e. the outside crew can be disappeared from history
4. A man resembling Mr. Oswald is given the job of firing from the SN window
5. But Mr. Oswald's movements on 11/22 cannot be controlled, so it's always going to be touch and go whether he stays in the building for the P. Parade or goes outside to watch it
6. If it turns out he stayed inside, then the frame-up of him is 100% successful: he has no alibi
7. If it turns out he went outside, then he can at least be implicated as an accomplice (via the rifle)
8. He is not, on either outcome, being set up as a lone wolf assassin but as a member of a conspiracy. The men on the sixth floor do not keep themselves carefully hidden. They are not anxious to hide the fact that this was a conspiracy
9. But how does Mr. Truly explain away the presence of non-employees on the sixth floor at the critical time? He doesn't. He simply offers the heart-broken explanation that Mr. Oswald (who seemed such a nice boy and such a reliable worker) must have slipped several men up there after the internal flooring crew broke for lunch. It was all the commie rat's fault. Mr. Truly's only sin was to give a young man in need of work a job.

So that---------on the present scenario---------might have been the basic plan.

However! Officer Baker's dash into the building forces Mr. Truly's hand prematurely. After the encounter with the man caught walking away from the rear stairway several floors up, he must commit to identifying this man: a worker in the building, but which one? Remember, he cannot reveal the existence of the outside flooring crew. Nor however can he in hindsight declare he was a stranger in the building--------he himself vouched for the man as a worker he recognised!

Erroneously thinking--------on the basis of his and the officer's sighting of Mr. Oswald in the small storage room on the first floor just after the shooting---------that Mr. Oswald did NOT go outside to watch the P. Parade after all, he feeds Mr. Oswald's name to the cops: he was the man we encountered by the stairway.

But (for reasons outlined a few posts back) this causes complications. Mr. Oswald, it turns out, was in the doorway at the time of the motorcade, and there is no guarantee that proof of that will not yet emerge into the public domain (before authorities have had a chance to monkey with it, as they must do with the Wiegman & Altgens images).

Result: the rear stairway encounter is relocated to the second-floor lunchroom, an ambiguous, hedge-betting location that Mr. Oswald could conceivably have reached from EITHER the sixth floor OR from the front entrance.

 

[John Iacoletti]

I believe the shows the cart that BRW claimed to have been sitting on (though several deputies noticed his chicken bones and lunch sack on and near boxes by the SE window).  It looks to me like it is right next to the window.  Which makes sense if he had been planning to watch the motorcade while he ate lunch.