Oswald took 10.2 seconds to fire all three shots.

[Andrew Mason]

    The TSBD front door is roughly in line with the water pool. The pictured Queen Mary is well passed that water pool and has reached the R.L. Thornton sign. As pictured, the agent looking to the (R) would be looking in the direction of the Shelter/Sidewalk and the bushes close to that same sidewalk. This SS Agent is Not looking Back toward any portion of the TSBD. To do so from his pictured position, would require a much more severe head turn.

The QM is well short of the Thornton sign at z186.  The lamp post is about 10 feet before the Thornton sign and JFK is a few feet short of the lamp post at z186.  Bennett is a car length (21’) + 6 feet behind JFK.

[Royell Storing]

Look on a Dealey Plaza map (the Roberdeau map shows Betzner’s position). Draw a line from Betzner’s position to the backseat position of the follow up vehicle at Z186. This is roughly the Z161 position of JFK as indicated on the Roberdeau map. We can see SS Agent Bennett’s right face profile. Therefore his head is facing roughly 90-degrees from the line of sight from Betzner’s camera. That 90-degree line intersects the TSBD at about the second set of windows (on the south side of the building) from the SW corner.

    You basically want the viewer to ignore what they actually see on the image. Just use the Light Pole as a landmark. This is not complicated.

[Royell Storing]

The QM is well short of the Thornton sign at z186.  The lamp post is about 10 feet before the Thornton sign and JFK is a few feet short of the lamp post at z186.  Bennett is a car length (21’) + 6 feet behind JFK.

   The Light Pole is NOT in line with the Thornton Sign. Your 10 feet measurement holds No Value with these 2 Landmarks NOT being in line. And try and stick with the posted Betzner pic. Nice try.

[Andrew Mason]

   The Light Pole is NOT in line with the Thornton Sign. Your 10 feet measurement holds No Value with these 2 Landmarks NOT being in line. And try and stick with the posted Betzner pic. Nice try.

I am not sure what you mean by “in line”. I was referring to the distance along the street.   This shows the distance along Elm St. after passing the lamp post and before passing the Thornton sign:



Here is the full Betzner photo from Trask:

[Tom Mahon]

I've just read the post where you realised the man you thought was Bennett, tilting his head to look around Powers, was actually Powers.

Correct, Little Man.

Here's something I wrote up on the subject especially for you:

David F. Powers was Special Assistant to JFK and was sitting on the passenger-side jump seat in the Secret Service follow-up car during the motorcade. Secret Service Agent Glen Bennet was sitting behind him on the rear seat and is apparently not visible in the Zapruder film.

Here’s part of his 12/18/63 statement:

"[W]e made a sharp right turn, for about a ½ block, then a curved left turn into a slight downhill grade, entering an area with little or no spectators. We were still travelling at the normal rate of speed of from 12 to 15 miles per hour when I heard a noise, similar to a firecracker, exploding in the area to the rear of the car, about 12:30 pm. Immediately I heard what I firmly believe was the President’s voice, “My God, I’m hit!” I turned around to find out what happened when two additional shots rang out, and the President slumped into Mrs. Kennedy’s . . ." [This is the end of page on the website where I found this statement.]

It's very interesting that Powers says he turned around between the first and second shots.

(Devil's Advocate: Was the second of the "two additional shots" just an echo of the [fill in the blank] shot in the echo chamber known as Dealey Plaza?

Now, if I recently misidentified virtually bald Powers as fully haired Secret Service Agent Glen Bennett in another thread, I sincerely apologize from the depths of my largish-but-ugly old "Deep State" / "National Security State" heart, and I now have some new thoughts and observations for all of you "Lone-Nutters" and tinfoil-hat JFKA conspiracy theorists, alike, to chew on.

As we all(?) know, Abraham Zapruder, having started filming the motorcade seven seconds prematurely, resumed filming at Z-133 when the limo was already, IIRC, about 100 feet down Elm Street.

Given that basic fact, in Z-136 we see virtually bald-headed Bennett oops I mean Powers looking sharply to his right, and then in Z-140 he's looking straight ahead. We don't know what he was doing before Z-133 because neither Zapruder nor Robert Hughes nor Tina Towner were filming during the critical hypothetical "Z-124", "125", "126", "127", "128", "129", "130", "131," and "132" frames.The sprocket hole and "blur" prevents us from seeing Bennet oops I mean Powers in Z-133, Z-134, and Z-135, but in Z-136, Z-137 and Z-138 it seems we can see Powers' head as it's turned far to his right, perhaps "to find out what happened" behind him half-a-second earlier at hypothetical "Z-124".

Pesky Question: Why does Bennent oops I mean Powers start tilting his head far to his right starting around Z-frame 149?

To get a better view of JFK (perhaps around the guy riding "shotgun" in front of him -- Assistant Special Agent In Charge, Emory Roberts) to determine whether or not he'd been hit by that first missing-everything shot aka "firecracker" at "Z-124"?

Devious Rhetorical Question: Is it just a coincidence that Secret Service Agent George Hickey, sitting up high on the other side of the car, is leaning over and looking at the pavement at this point (Z-149), given the fact that he reported later that he thought he'd heard a firecracker and seen its remnants float down there?

Regardless, here's a creative posit:

It James Tague down by the triple underpass who yelled out, "My God, I'm hit!" !!!

I mean I mean I mean (to borrow a phrase from Jimmy DiEugenio at the so-called JFK Assassination Debate - Education Forum), wasn't JFK, wounded in the neck and paralyzed by Oswald's second shot (around Z-222) as he was, incapable of saying anything at that point?

More likely, JBC, right?

Was Dave Powers, like so many other witnesses, confused as to what he had witnessed?

Was the sequence of events a bit jumbled in his memory?

Oh well, at least he correctly said there were three shots (the first one of which he said sounded like a firecracker) and that he turned between the first one and the second one to find out what had happened in the area to the rear of the car, so I guess I shouldn't be too hard on him.

[Charles Collins]

I took a look at another copy of the Betzner 3 photograph. In this version, it appears that we can see some of the details in the shadows that are not visible in the darker version we have been posting and looking at. What seemed to me to be the right side of his face in the darker version now appears to be his right fist and the back of his head appears to be resting on it. In this version, we can see how his right arm (bent elbow) appears to be resting on the back of the back seat. If I am seeing things correctly this time, it appears to me that we can see his left ear and a sliver of the left side of his face. If so, this makes it appear that he is looking in the direction of JFK.



I am not immune to the influence of my imagination in the phenomenon of “seeing what we want to see” in interpreting some of these grainy old photos. But I do now believe that Bennett is looking towards JFK in this photo. What do y’all think?

[Tom Mahon]

I took a look at another copy of the Betzner 3 photograph. In this version, it appears that we can see some of the details in the shadows that are not visible in the darker version we have been posting and looking at. What seemed to me to be the right side of his face in the darker version now appears to be his right fist and the back of his head appears to be resting on it. In this version, we can see how his right arm (bent elbow) appears to be resting on the back of the back seat. If I am seeing things correctly this time, it appears to me that we can see his left ear and a sliver of the left side of his face. If so, this makes it appear that he is looking in the direction of JFK.



I am not immune to the influence of my imagination in the phenomenon of “seeing what we want to see” in interpreting some of these grainy old photos. But I do now believe that Bennett is looking towards JFK in this photo. What do y’all think?

Virtually bald Dave Powers, who is sitting directly in front of Bennett and significantly lower than him, is looking straight ahead, so if Bennent is, too -- which I believe he is although I don't see the fist that you do -- that makes both of them.

Question: Is Bennett's upper torso oriented perpendicularly to the axis of the car, or is it turned to his right?

[Charles Collins]

Bald, except-for-some-hair-on-the-back-of-his-head, Dave Powers (the big whitish sphere directly in front of Bennett and significantly lower than him) is looking straight ahead, so if Bennent is, too (which I believe he is), that makes both of them.

Question: Is Bennett's upper torso oriented perpendicularly to the axis of the car, or is it turned to his right?

It appears very clearly to me that Bennett’s upper torso is turned to his right.