James Leon Simmons.... Overpass Witness

[Barry Pollard]

Somebody better tell Sam Holland, Lee Bowers, Richard Dodd, and James Simmons that what they saw and smelled was fall foliage.

I'd tell Simmons that in Bell it looks like he was waving or clapping at a dead Kennedy and since he was stood 10' south of Holland I'd call him out too.
"Stop waving and duck you sucker". No?
Tall guy in dungerees in Altgens/Dillard and in same position in Bell.

I don't put Bowers in the same league, whether he saw something or not is much more vague, if he did it seems he was never sure what it was, that makes him more credible to me.
Perhaps something, perhaps nothing but no wild claims( except seeing the bike cop ride up).

Watch those interviews from Lane, Holland and Bowers come across okay but the others oh boy, Simmons cannot even take direction he got tranfixed with the camera lens(that was the best take) and what was Dodd on? "Can we have your full attention please Mr. Dodd?" Wheel tappers, not the brightest bulbs.
Anyone who think's think I'm being too harsh can ask me about Jackson, Couch and Brennan, I have theories about them also and how they're all full of it.

Mrs Cabell smelt gunpowder, of course she did, she said so so she must have, Dillard too, all of them, I really believe them, no honestly I do.
I also believe(no not that), that people looked at the knoll and thought " what a good place for an ambush" before the motorade arrived, then when the shooting happens, that's exactly where they came from(you know her?). Was it Allman who claimed that that all those open windows on the TSBD looked dodgy BEFORE the motorcade arrived, of course he did, I believe them all, wonderful intelligent people with no reason to get involved.

Find out what Darnell said/remembered, it's so refreshing, no wild claims and no added extras, just for a change.

[Bill Brown]

Somebody better tell Sam Holland, Lee Bowers, Richard Dodd, and James Simmons that what they saw and smelled was fall foliage.

Lee Bowers does not belong in that group.  Why include him?

[John Iacoletti]

It's just small enough an indefinite value to keep the pointlessly obtuse pointless and obtuse, apparently.

In other words, when you said "For them, shots from the GK would come from the same direction as the TSBD", you didn't really actually mean "same direction".

[Barry Pollard]

I have real trouble seeing members of the public pinpointing those noises based only on the sound, don't care where they were stood, I have trouble with it, big smiles and still clapping and waving.
Ready had something though, reacted fast and when we see him, is looking at steet level, no coincidence he's looking back IMO, watch him on Houston, he looking around and up, alert and don't forget he also went to jump off and run to Kennedy but was stopped by Roberts.

Bowers never confirmed that "commotion" was behind the fence, not to Lane, not in that film, what happens in RTJ at that point is called "artistic liscence".
Watch the scene with Price and more or less the same thing happened. Lane hands Price what he calls on film "a map used by the WC".
But what we see after the edit, is a familiar photo and do we see a mark on it from Price(hard to make out especially compared to Bowers' big "X")?
Next two lines of dialogue were interesting.
Lane said "you put a mark behind the fence where it meets the overpass [around 80' feet from Bowers' "X"] then listen to what Price says next, it's like he's suddenly in court.
That "X" is not from Bowers at all btw, it's clearly generated by the filmmaker, why?
Note what Simmons marked also, that is genuinly  "a map used by the WC" but Price and Bowers own marking of that same map is not shown at all.

[John Mytton]

Somebody better tell Sam Holland, Lee Bowers, Richard Dodd, and James Simmons that what they saw and smelled was fall foliage.

and smelled

That's interesting, at the time of the headshot the wind was blowing up Elm Street as seen by the billowing dresses of Mary and Jean.



Your witnesses minus Bowers were on the overpass.



Question: Where was your sniper?



JohnM

[Bill Chapman]

This is from Love Field. Posted on Google groups/MacAdams. Someone might have Dealey Plaza conditions; I don't.

NCDC - National Climatic Data Center
US Department of Commerce - Weather Bureau
Surface Weather Observations
Dallas, Texas (Dallas Love Field) NOV 22 1963

Time    Temp    Direction               Knots   MPH

1055       57              SW                 10

1130                         WSW              12              14

1155       63              WSW              13              15

1230                            W                13              15

1255        67              WNW             17              20

1330                           WNW             17+25

1355        69              WNW             19+26



Posted on Google groups/mcadams

[Bill Chapman]

Witnesses Who Smelled "Gunpowder" in Dealey Plaza
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/smell.htm

Conspiracy authors like to quote witnesses in Dealey Plaza who smelled "gunpowder" in the air at the time of the Kennedy assassination. Supposedly, they could not have smelled gunpowder from a snot from the Sniper's Nest in the Depository, so what they smelled must have been the result of a shot from the Grassy Knoll.
Yet Earle V. Brown was a Dallas cop who was stationed on the railroad overpass that crossed the Stemmons Freeway. By his own estimation he was about 100 yards from the Triple Underpass. The following testimony can be found in WC volume 6, pp. 233-234:

Mr. BALL. Did you hear the shots?
Mr. BROWN. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. How many?
Mr. BROWN. Three.
Mr. BALL. Where did they seem to come from?
Mr. BROWN. Well, they seemed high to me, actually; if you want, would you like me to tell you?
Mr. BALL Sure, tell it in your own words.
Mr. BROWN. Well, down in that river bottom there, there's a whole lot of pigeons this particular day, and they heard the shots before we did because I saw them flying up ? must have been 50, 75 of them.
Mr. BALL. Where was the river bottom?
Mr. BROWN. You know, actually off to the ? between us and the, this overpass you are talking about there's kind of a levee along there. It's really a grade of the railroad, is what it is; that's where they were and then I heard these shots and then I smelled this gun powder.
Mr. BALL. You did?
Mr. BROWN. It come on it would be maybe a couple minutes later so ? at least it smelled like it to me.
Mr. BALL. What direction did the sound seem to come from?
Mr. BROWN. It came it seemed the direction of that building, that Texas . . .
Mr. BALL. School Book Depository?
Mr. BROWN. School Book Depository.
The location of the Stemmons Freeway railroad overpass can be seen in the following photo:

Is it plausible that an officer could smell gunpowder from shots in Dealey Plaza from 100 yards past the Underpass in the opposite direction? And that any such smell would still be in the air two minutes after the shooting?

To make matters worse, the wind in Dealey Plaza at the time of the head shot was from the southwest. This can be clearly seen in a frame from the Muchmore film. The coats of Mary Moorman and Jean Hill show a brisk wind.


The wind would thus have carried any "gunpowder" smell away from Officer Brown, who was due west or perhaps west-northwest of the Plaza.

So it seems that these reports of "smelling gunpowder" have to be explained in psychological, rather than narrow olfactory, terms. As Gary Nivaggi has suggested:

I too do not believe that there was any gunpowder smell following the shooting, but a similar "combustion by-product" odor combined with the psychological effect may have caused the confusion. Those enormous, inefficient V-8 engines in the motorcade vehicles would, under the obvious rapid or full throttle acceleration, give off some very strong exhaust fumes. Upon passing through these fumes, especially after hearing the shots, those fumes could be mistaken for gunpowder smells.

[Bill Brown]

And this changes witnesses seeing smoke how?

Straw man.