Lee Oswald The Cop Killer

[John Mytton]

This is how Frances Cason describes the situation in the radio dispatchers office:

Mrs. Cason: These are the initials of Officer M. J. Jackson who was working on the radio with Officer C. E. Hulse at the time the calls were dispatched. The way our radio is set up part of the squads are handled by this officer on one side of the board and part of the squads and the ambulances and APB, which is traffic investigators are handled by the officer on the other side of the radio board, and Mr. Jackson was sitting on the side of the board that would handle a call in the downtown area.

She appears to be describing a situation where both dispatchers sit at the same radio board. This implies the dispatchers are sat in close proximity. This seems to be confirmed by Gerald Henslee:

Mr. Henslee: Well, in this instance, I was not only supervising the channel 1 radio and the incoming radio calls, but was the police dispatcher for channel 2, covering the special event of the arrival of the President of the United States, President Kennedy.

On the day of the assassination Henslee and Murray are sat at the radio board and Henslee is across both channels.
I find it hard to believe that, in this given situation, each dispatcher is unaware of the calls of the other.
As such, I find it even harder to believe that one channel can wander off from the other by a minute let alone five minutes. Particularly as there are regular intervals when both dispatchers call the same timestamp:

12:34
12:35
12:36
12:40
12:45
12:51
12:54
1:11
1:12
1:19

The timestamp at 12:45pm is a particularly clear example of both channels being in synch with each other:



The available evidence suggests, in terms timestamps, the events in Dealey Plaza and the DP dispatch office are in synch at 12:30pm
Brewers' call on channel 2, between 12:37 and 12:40pm, is supported by the picture of him riding the wrong way up Elm at 12:39pm
Both channels are in synch at 12:45pm and there is no evidence I can find, in the tape transcripts or otherwise, that suggests the channels go out of synch up to the point of Bowley's call.

Nice work, to help visualize what the DPD may have looked like, these are some random Police radio rooms and as expected they are similar to how the Dallas radio room is described with both operators being reasonably close.











JohnM

[Dan O'meara]

That’s because it doesn’t matter what you believe.

You don’t know that Murray and Henslee “sat at the same radio board”. Neither Cason or Henslee said that. That was just something you read into it.

Cason said:
"The way our radio is set up part of the squads are handled by this officer on one side of the board and part of the squads and the ambulances and APB, which is traffic investigators are handled by the officer on the other side of the radio board..."

The [singular] radio board.
I'm not reading anything into it, that's how English works.
Cason does not say Murray was sat at one board and Henslee was sat at another.
They were sat at the same radio board.
You might believe there's another way of interpreting what Cason said, but it doesn't matter what you believe.

And obviously the two radio dispatcher clocks could drift apart without them being aware of it right away because Bowles said that they did.

Wrong. Bowles said the clocks "could" drift apart.
You seem to believe just because Bowles said it "could" happen, that it "did" happen.
And, if it did happen, it is possible neither dispatcher would notice it "right away", but immensely unlikely it wouldn't be noticed as the timestamps drifted further and further apart, until there was a five minute difference [ a difference Bowles never even hinted at].

You claimed that “there are regular intervals when both dispatchers call the same timestamp”. You can’t possibly know that.

All the available evidence points to the conclusion that this is the case.
There is nothing to suggest otherwise. Is there?

[Martin Weidmann]

Cason said:
"The way our radio is set up part of the squads are handled by this officer on one side of the board and part of the squads and the ambulances and APB, which is traffic investigators are handled by the officer on the other side of the radio board..."

The [singular] radio board.
I'm not reading anything into it, that's how English works.
Cason does not say Murray was sat at one board and Henslee was sat at another.
They were sat at the same radio board.
You might believe there's another way of interpreting what Cason said, but it doesn't matter what you believe.

Wrong. Bowles said the clocks "could" drift apart.
You seem to believe just because Bowles said it "could" happen, that it "did" happen.
And, if it did happen, it is possible neither dispatcher would notice it "right away", but immensely unlikely it wouldn't be noticed as the timestamps drifted further and further apart, until there was a five minute difference [ a difference Bowles never even hinted at].

All the available evidence points to the conclusion that this is the case.
There is nothing to suggest otherwise. Is there?

And, if it did happen, it is possible neither dispatcher would notice it "right away", but immensely unlikely it wouldn't be noticed as the timestamps drifted further and further apart, until there was a five minute difference [ a difference Bowles never even hinted at].

The five minute difference would have been between what Bowles described as "police time" and "real time". The dispatcher would not be aware of any difference, because they had no way of knowing if and by how much their own clocks (which they related to the master clock in the room) would be behind or faster than "real time".

If there was a difference between "real time" and the master clock of two minutes and a difference of two minutes between the master clock and the clocks used by the dispatchers, you already have a difference of four minutes between "real time" and the dispatcher's clocks.

It doesn't have to be proven conclusively what the exact time difference, to the precise second, was between the dispatcher's clocks and/or time stamps and "real time". The mere possibility that Bowles basically told us that the system wasn't set up to give "real time" is enough to conclude that the time stamps called out but dispatcher can not be relied upon as being accurate.

[John Iacoletti]

I'm not reading anything into it, that's how English works.
Cason does not say Murray was sat at one board and Henslee was sat at another.
They were sat at the same radio board.

Cason didn’t say anything about Murray or Henslee at all. Or the radio dispatchers. Regardless, she didn’t say that the people sitting at this singular board were close enough to see each other’s clocks. Or hear each other. If they could, why have separate clocks in the first place?

Wrong. Bowles said the clocks "could" drift apart.

What do you mean “wrong”? That’s exactly what I said.

You seem to believe just because Bowles said it "could" happen, that it "did" happen.

I never said that. All I said was that we don’t know how close they were to each other that day.

And, if it did happen, it is possible neither dispatcher would notice it "right away", but immensely unlikely it wouldn't be noticed as the timestamps drifted further and further apart, until there was a five minute difference [ a difference Bowles never even hinted at].

You have no basis whatsoever to declare this “immensely unlikely”. More “common sense” in lieu of evidence?

[Dan O'meara]

And, if it did happen, it is possible neither dispatcher would notice it "right away", but immensely unlikely it wouldn't be noticed as the timestamps drifted further and further apart, until there was a five minute difference [ a difference Bowles never even hinted at].

The five minute difference would have been between what Bowles described as "police time" and "real time". The dispatcher would not be aware of any difference, because they had no way of knowing if and by how much their own clocks (which they related to the master clock in the room) would be behind or faster than "real time".

If there was a difference between "real time" and the master clock of two minutes and a difference of two minutes between the master clock and the clocks used by the dispatchers, you already have a difference of four minutes between "real time" and the dispatcher's clocks.

It doesn't have to be proven conclusively what the exact time difference, to the precise second, was between the dispatcher's clocks and/or time stamps and "real time". The mere possibility that Bowles basically told us that the system wasn't set up to give "real time" is enough to conclude that the time stamps called out but dispatcher can not be relied upon as being accurate.

The evidence I have provided and the arguments I have presented as a result of this evidence, have shown, to a very high degree of probability, that the timestamps in the dispatchers office are synchronised with events happening in Dealey Plaza, specifically the time given on the Hertz clock (corroborated by the testimonies of Powers and Greer).
As such, there is no need to refer to the master clock or "real" time (whatever that means).

"If there was a difference between "real time" and the master clock of two minutes and a difference of two minutes between the master clock and the clocks used by the dispatchers, you already have a difference of four minutes between "real time" and the dispatcher's clocks."

Because I have focused on synchronising the dispatchers timestamps with "Dealey" time the above argument is no longer relevant. The only way for a five minute discrepancy to occur is for the dispatcher's clock for channel 1 to drift 5 minutes away from the moment of 12:30pm, synchronised with "Dealey" time.
For the Tippit shooting to have occurred around 1;10pm that would require a 5 drift shift in 40 minutes (from 12:30pm to 1:10pm)
The Brewer evidence demonstrates channel 2 was still in synch with "Dealey" time around 12:39pm.

The problem I am having is that, from the testimonies of Henslee and Cason, we have a situation where Murray and Henslee are sat at the same radio board that day and, more importantly, Henslee is not only the channel 2 dispatcher, he is also supervising channel 1, meaning he is across both channels.
I find it most unlikely, given this situation, that the channel 1 dispatcher is calling out timestamps that are 5 minutes different from channel 2, and Henslee isn't noticing it.
This drift would've occurred over a period of time, getting gradually worse, so there would be plenty of time and opportunities for the discrepancy to be noticed, particularly as there are so many examples of the dispatchers calling out the same timestamp.

The only other alternative I can see is that both clocks gradually drifted away from "Dealey" time until there was a 5 minute discrepancy, but I find this scenario extremely unlikely.

[Martin Weidmann]

The evidence I have provided and the arguments I have presented as a result of this evidence, have shown, to a very high degree of probability, that the timestamps in the dispatchers office are synchronised with events happening in Dealey Plaza, specifically the time given on the Hertz clock (corroborated by the testimonies of Powers and Greer).
As such, there is no need to refer to the master clock or "real" time (whatever that means).

"If there was a difference between "real time" and the master clock of two minutes and a difference of two minutes between the master clock and the clocks used by the dispatchers, you already have a difference of four minutes between "real time" and the dispatcher's clocks."

Because I have focused on synchronising the dispatchers timestamps with "Dealey" time the above argument is no longer relevant. The only way for a five minute discrepancy to occur is for the dispatcher's clock for channel 1 to drift 5 minutes away from the moment of 12:30pm, synchronised with "Dealey" time.
For the Tippit shooting to have occurred around 1;10pm that would require a 5 drift shift in 40 minutes (from 12:30pm to 1:10pm)
The Brewer evidence demonstrates channel 2 was still in synch with "Dealey" time around 12:39pm.

The problem I am having is that, from the testimonies of Henslee and Cason, we have a situation where Murray and Henslee are sat at the same radio board that day and, more importantly, Henslee is not only the channel 2 dispatcher, he is also supervising channel 1, meaning he is across both channels.
I find it most unlikely, given this situation, that the channel 1 dispatcher is calling out timestamps that are 5 minutes different from channel 2, and Henslee isn't noticing it.
This drift would've occurred over a period of time, getting gradually worse, so there would be plenty of time and opportunities for the discrepancy to be noticed, particularly as there are so many examples of the dispatchers calling out the same timestamp.

The only other alternative I can see is that both clocks gradually drifted away from "Dealey" time until there was a 5 minute discrepancy, but I find this scenario extremely unlikely.

the timestamps in the dispatchers office are synchronised with events happening in Dealey Plaza, specifically the time given on the Hertz clock (corroborated by the testimonies of Powers and Greer). As such, there is no need to refer to the master clock or "real" time (whatever that means).

Of course there is that need, as Bowles made it absolutely clear that the dispatcher's clocks were not in synch with the master clock, which in turn was not in synch with "real" time. With "real" time he clearly means actual standard time. Unless you can show that the Hertz clock and those of Powers and Greer were spot on in synch with "real" time, the dispatcher's time stamps being synchronised with those time pieces doesn't prove that they were in synch with real time.

This drift would've occurred over a period of time, getting gradually worse, so there would be plenty of time and opportunities for the discrepancy to be noticed, particularly as there are so many examples of the dispatchers calling out the same timestamp.

Well, they actually didn't call out any time stamp between 1:16 and 1:19. I haven't checked prior to that, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were other gaps like this as well.

The only other alternative I can see is that both clocks gradually drifted away from "Dealey" time until there was a 5 minute discrepancy, but I find this scenario extremely unlikely.

This is flawed reasoning, because you can not be sure that "Dealey" time is the same as "real" standard time.

This matter of the dispatcher's clocks being out of synch with "real" time (which is what Bowles said they were) can not be discussed in isolation. If you want to make the case that the dispatcher's clock did in fact reflect "real" time, then you also need to explain (1) how Markham could possibly still be at the corner of 10th/Patton at 1:15 (real time), when she testified she got on her regular bus, at the bus stop on Jefferson, at that time.

Markham only had to walk two blocks in about four minutes to get from her home to the bus stop on Jefferson and she did the same thing every day. She testified that she left home at about 1:06  or 1:07, which means she would have passed by 10th street some four to five minutes prior to the shooting, if that took place at 1:15! How can that be?

And then there is Bowley. He had just picked up his daughter from school and was on his way to pick up his wife from her place of work on 9th street. He must have been acutely aware of the time, as any parent picking up a child from school is. R. L. Thornton School in Singing Hills, where Bowley picked up his daughter "at about 12:55 pm", is around 7 miles or about 13 minutes away from 10th street, which, when added another two minutes, means that Bowley would have arrived at the scene at around 1:10. He said he looked at his watch which said 1:10. If he had needed another four minutes to drive the distance, he still would have arrived on time to witness the shooting, if that took place at 1:15. As he actually arrived about 2 minutes (max) after the shooting, his drive time would have been some 22 minutes for a 13 minute distance. Does that sound plausible to you?

[John Iacoletti]

Because I have focused on synchronising the dispatchers timestamps with "Dealey" time the above argument is no longer relevant. The only way for a five minute discrepancy to occur is for the dispatcher's clock for channel 1 to drift 5 minutes away from the moment of 12:30pm, synchronised with "Dealey" time.
For the Tippit shooting to have occurred around 1;10pm that would require a 5 drift shift in 40 minutes (from 12:30pm to 1:10pm)

No, because we’re discussing what the real time was when Tippit was shot, not the “Dealey time”.

[John Iacoletti]

Well, they actually didn't call out any time stamp between 1:16 and 1:19.

And none on channel 2 between 1:12 and 1:18.