Gerald Hill, regarding the writing of the arrest report...
I explained to trim that this was the suspect on Tippit and did he want us to make up the arrest sheet, or would they make them up.
We were trying to get together to decide who was going to make the offense report and get all the little technicalities out of the way when a detective named Richard Stovall and another one, G. F. Rose, came up, and the four of us were standing when Captain Fritz walked in.
He walked up to Rose and Stovall and made the statement to them, "Go get a search warrant and go out to some address on Fifth Street," and I don't recall the actual street number, in Irving, and "pick up a man named Lee Oswald."
And I asked the captain why he wanted him, and he said, "Well, he was employed down at the Book Depository and he had not been present for a roll call of the employees."
And we said, "Captain, we will save you a trip," or words to that effect, "Because there he sits."
And with that, we relinquished our prisoner to the homicide and robbery bureau, to Captain Fritz.
Walker, Bentley, Lyons, Carroll, and I knew that the prisoner had received a laceration and bruises while effecting his arrest, and that an officer had been scratched while effecting the arrest, and that Bentley had sprained an ankle, and Lyons had sprained an ankle while effecting the arrest--they were fixing to have to make a whole bushel basket of reports--we adjourned to the personnel office, which was further down the hall from homicide and I sat down and started to try to organize the first report on the arrest.
I originally had the heading on it, "Injuries sustained by suspect while effecting his arrest in connection with the murder of Officer J. D. Tippit," and a few minutes later Captain Westbrook came in the office and said that our suspect had admitted being a Communist. This is strictly hearsay. I did not hear it myself.
He himself also said a few minutes later he had previously been in the Marine Corps, had a dishonorable discharge, had been to Russia, and had had some trouble with the police in New Orleans for passing out pro-Castro literature.
This still is all hearsay because I didn't actually hear it firsthand myself.
And at about this point Captain Westbrook suggested that I change the heading of my report to include arrest of the suspect in the assassination of the President and in the murder of Officer J. D. Tippit, which I did.
