How Good Are People at Counting?

[John Iacoletti]

>You state the facts as lies

Provide a single example.

>Your conclusions are cherry-picked misrepresentations of the facts.

Provide a single example.

>Do you think anyone is going to take seriously someone (you and Caprio) who claims the only reason the DPD converged on the TT was solely because a man was reported for being suspected of not buying a ticket?

Neither Caprio or I have ever claimed that.  It's appropriate that you posted a troll graphic, because that's exactly what you're doing: accusing people of saying stuff that they never said.

[Andrew Mason]

Three (if that's what it was) loud noises became increasing "salient" as the sounds unfolded. The first few loud noises weren't "salient" to everyone.

On what evidence do you base that statement? Name one witness who did not notice the first shot - or any of the shots.  Only a few identified it as a rifle shot, but they could not help but hear that "horrible, ear-shattering noise" (as Mary Woodward described it).

They were also in a distraction setting with peak concentration on the motorcade at the time of the first shot.

On what evidence do you base that statement? Name one witness who "dismissed" the first loud noise from their mind.  Do you think that hearing another similar noise 4 seconds later that they could not remember having heard the first?

While it's true they could not fail to hear three shots (if there were, in fact, three shots), it doesn't mean it was stored in memory equally. For some of the witnesses, their perception and retention of initial events (some termed the first shot as a backfire or firecracker) could be affected by a greater concentration on the latter shots and things occurring visually up to and including the shock of the head shot and the dramatic Jackie/Clint potential tragedy.

And if you actually had evidence that this occurred at all, let alone that it affected the vast majority of witnesses, I could take it seriously.  But as it is, it is just made-up - speculation.  Think about it: if these witnesses had trouble recalling the pattern of three loud ear-shattering noises spaced 1...2.......3 why did they recall 1.......2...3 in so many different, consistent ways? ie:

• Many witnesses, without quantifying the spacing, said that they heard a loud noise and then a pause then two in rapid succession. 
• John Wiseman heard a loud noise - then ran from the front door of the Sheriff's building to the corner of Houston and Main (half the width of the building) and then hears 2 more shots (John Wiseman 19 H 535)
• Wm. Greer stated that the second followed the first by three or four seconds and ?The last two seemed to be just simultaneously, one behind the other, but I don?t recollect just how much, how many seconds were between the two. I couldn?t really say.?  2 H 118. 
• Sorrels: ?There was to me about twice as much time between the first and second shots as there was between the second and third shots.?  7 H 345.
• Bowers: ?I heard three shots. One, then a slight pause, then two very close together?. 6 H 287.
• Paternostro:  ?He said he estimated several seconds, possibly four or five or more, elapsed between the first report and the second and third reports?... ?then when the other reports followed in quick succession?CE 2105,  24 H 536. 

Spectators in the stands at the Boston Marathon Bombing barely react until the second bomb goes off.

How is that relevant? As I understand it, the two bombs were separated by a city block and were 12 seconds apart, so it is understandable that people near the site of the second bomb may not have reacted to the first.   In any event, few spectators on Elm St. reacted to the first shot.  They did not react until after the second or third shots. 

This does not mean that the sound of the shots, or of the bombs, was not etched in the witness' memories.

[Andrew Mason]

Robert (Bob) Jackson was certainly a distracted witness at the time of the first shot. He was looking backwards from the car he was in and laughing with others at a reporter who was trying to get a roll of film thrown to him that the wind had caught.

He was looking forward toward the TSBD at the time of the shots. The incident that you mention occurred at the corner.  Their car was "approximately almost half a block on Houston Street when he heard the first shot.  He just had to look up to see the rifle in the 6th Floor window.

To you, Mary Woodward is reliable for "shot spanning"-- but "hazy" in her claim the first shot struck no one and the second shot made the President slump?

No to me.  To her.  She said that things were a bit hazy after the first shot as to what it hit.  But the one thing that she said she would swear on the bible till the day she dies is that there were three shots - the last two sounding one over top of the echo of the other.

[Andrew Mason]

Stop lawyering up the witness.

Z180s, Jackson is past the midpoint of the building. And he's still turned away from the Depository.

I can't see Jackson's "x" on CE347 can you?  He said he was about half way on Houston and approximately the midpoint of "this building".  In any event, it was after he tossed his film to the guy standing on the corner of Houston and Main. It was after that that he heard the shots.  Here is a Youtube video of what he recalled in 1999:

  Notice that he still remarked on the spacing of the shots almost 40 years later.

You mean this quote:

    "One thing I am totally positive about in my own mind is how
     many shots there were. And there were three shots. The
     second two shots were immediate. It was almost as if one
     were an echo of the other. They came so quickly the sound
     of one did not cease until the second shot. With the second
     and third shot I did see the president being hit."

If you're going to include everything she was sure of in that statement, then you have to include the first shot miss.

Plus we have this:

    "I knew the first shot missed--I have never wavered on that.
     And I see now that this is getting a lot of support. But I have
     said that from day one--that the first shot missed. I've never
     changed my mind on that."

Yes. I have made the point many times that the two are inconsistent. If she heard the last two shots close together as she describes then her "hazy" impression that JFK was not hit by the first shot was wrong.  If her "hazy" impression (which conflicts with the clear recollections of about 20 others) is correct, then her recollection of the last two shots being so close together is wrong. They cannot both be correct.

[Bill Brown]

LOL.  Nowhere in that video does McDonald even say that Oswald tried to shoot a cop in the theater.

Oh, yes, he does. If you pay attention to the video McDonald states that he "snapped the pistol" in other words he pulled the trigger. Innocent people certainly don't try to shoot their way out, now do they.

But Paul...

Iacoletti actually believes the snap could have been a theater seat springing to action as someone got up from it.

Brown actually believes that a click or a snap noise must be a trigger on a revolver being pulled.

But don't blame me for the idea -- blame Ray Hawkins.

Except that Hawkins did not say what you're falsely attributing to him.  You're putting words in his mouth.

Anything to get a cop-killer off the hook.  Right?

[John Iacoletti]

Except that Hawkins did not say what you're falsely attributing to him.  You're putting words in his mouth.

Anything to get a cop-killer off the hook.  Right?

You haven't actually established that he killed anybody, but nice try.  Anything to frame your desired culprit, right?  "Tried to shoot a cop".  LOL.

I didn't falsely attribute anything.

By the way, it was also mentioned in the Dallas Morning News that earlier as Brewer and Burroughs "passed the back section of the middle aisle downstairs, they heard a seat snap or crack" (November 23, 1963), so according to that, those theater seats did make snapping noises.

[Andrew Mason]

You don't mean midway to the next building along Houston? We'll be getting into the Z250s for the first shot. Gee, you working on another screwball pet theory?

My "pet theory" is that the 22 witnesses who said that JFK acted as if he was hit by the first shot were not all experiencing simultaneous halucinations;  that Hughes and Betzner were not halucinating when they said they exposed their film before the first shot; that 45 witnesses, including Jackson, were not halucinating when they recalled the 1......2...3 shot pattern; that dozens of witnesses in motorcade and along Elm were not having simultaneous halucinations as to where JFK was at the time of the first shot. That's my "pet theory".

Jackson also remarks that the first shot occurred just after he tossed the film. That takes us back to his testimony about laughing at the wind taking the film. Dillard spoke about the reverberation being really bad there because of the tall buildings.

So how does laughing at the corner affect his ability to hear the shots?  He said he was looking forward and just had to look up to the the rifle in the 6th floor window just after the third shot. What is your "pet theory" as to how the incident at the corner prevented him from hearing the shot pattern that he still recalled 36 years later? Does your "pet theory" have any evidence to support it?

On the reverberation point, reverb is not echo. Reverb does not provide two distinct shot sounds. Besides, if people were confused by echos they would have reported MORE than 3 shots.

That's the problem. What makes you think your 20 cherry-picks had clear comprehension of the shot spanning in the midst of major distraction and confusion, and equally clear reconstruction in their memory?

How are you using the term "cherry picking"? If I was selectively choosing the witnesses who observed JFK's reactions to the first shot, please identify the witnesses who said otherwise.  I am citing ALL those witnesses.  If you disagree, then tell me who I am not including in my list of 22 witnesses who observed JFK immediately after the first shot that you think I should be including (besides Mary Woodward). I did not include Mary Woodward for two reasons: 1. she said things were a little hazy after the first shot but she did not think anyone was hit by it and 2. the second shot was followed rapidly by a third.  2 is inconsistent with 1.  Since JFK is reacting to his neck wound 5 seconds before the last shot, if he had been hit on the only on the second shot, the last two shots could not have followed "rapidly".

[Bill Brown]

By the way, it was also mentioned in the Dallas Morning News that earlier as Brewer and Burroughs "passed the back section of the middle aisle downstairs, they heard a seat snap or crack" (November 23, 1963), so according to that, those theater seats did make snapping noises.

Irrelevant, unless you can cite that article stating that Brewer or Burroughs said that the "seat snap or crack" sounded like the hammer or the trigger of a revolver.