Reclaiming History (31 page)

“A lot of people down here think I should be sworn in right away,” Johnson says, moving closer to the point of the call. “Do you have any objection to that?”

Kennedy is stunned by the question. It has only been an hour since his brother was shot and he doesn’t see what the rush is. Johnson forges ahead.

“Who could swear me in?” he asks.

Bobby is in a daze. The events are swirling too fast. He’d like his brother’s body to be returned to Washington before Johnson becomes the new president, but he decides that his feelings are all personal.

“I’ll be glad to find out,” he tells Johnson. “I’ll call you back.”
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Johnson then calls a number of political friends in Dallas, finding few of them in their offices. He is particularly anxious to reach federal district judge Sarah Hughes, an old friend and political protégée, on the assumption that she might be able to administer the oath. Judge Hughes is contacted by phone and she agrees to do so.
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Youngblood, national security uppermost in his mind, hates the idea of remaining parked on the apron at Love Field any longer than necessary. He thinks there are several people on board the plane who can administer the oath—anyone who himself has taken an oath of office, even a Secret Service agent, for example—but he has to wait while Johnson makes a few more calls to Washington, one to his chief aide, Walter Jenkins, another to McGeorge Bundy.
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Neither of them can think where to find the exact text of the oath. Meanwhile, Robert Kennedy has consulted Assistant Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, who finds it easily—in the Constitution itself, Article II, Section 1 [8]. Katzenbach also resolves the question of who is legally empowered to administer the oath—anyone who can take a sworn statement under state or federal laws. Even a justice of the peace will do. Kennedy calls Johnson back with the information, and tells Johnson that the oath should be administered immediately, before taking off for Washington.
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A
t Tenth and Patton, police question Barbara and Virginia Davis. Domingo Benavides and Sam Guinyard are nearby as the two young women describe how the gunman ran across their front walk, shaking shells from his revolver into his hand. It doesn’t take long for Benavides to find one of them, near the bushes at the corner of the house. He picks it up in his hand before he thinks that police might check for fingerprints. He drops it, picks it up again with a twig, and puts it into an empty Winston cigarette package. A minute later, he finds a second cartridge shell in a bush. He turns them over to Officer Joe Poe, standing nearby.
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1:41 p.m.

Sergeant Gerald Hill takes Patrolman Poe’s squad car back to the scene and hands him the keys. Poe shows the sergeant a Winston cigarette package containing the two spent cartridge casings found by Benavides.
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Hill tells the patrolman to turn them over to the crime lab and radioes the police dispatcher.

“The shells at the scene indicate that the suspect is armed with an automatic thirty-eight, rather than a pistol,” Hill informs him, unaware that eyewitnesses saw the gunman manually removing the spent shells.
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Police are reconverging on the Tippit murder scene after the false alarm at the Jefferson Branch Library when a civilian witness at the scene gives Hill information that he immediately radios in to the channel 2 dispatcher: “A witness reports that he [the gunman] last was seen in the Abundant Life Temple…We are fixing to go in and shake it down.”
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(If Hill had called into channel 1, the dispatcher would have told him the church had been checked out just seven minutes earlier by Officer M. N. McDonald.) Two women emerge from inside the church and tell Hill they are employees. He asks them if they had seen anybody enter the church. They say no, nobody entered the church but invite him and his people to go inside and check for themselves,
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which the police do,
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finding no one hiding inside.

A
t the Tippit murder scene, Captain Westbrook and Sergeant Owens question Mrs. Markham to learn exactly what happened before the shooting. She describes how the gunman seemed to lean on the passenger side of the squad car when he spoke to the officer inside. Crime-lab sergeant W. E. “Pete” Barnes arrives and Westbrook orders him to dust the right passenger side of the car for fingerprints.
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Just below the top part of the right passenger door and also on the right front fender, Barnes finds some smudged prints.
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*

Nearby, Sergeant Richard D. Stringer contacts the channel 2 dispatcher.

“Could you pass this to someone. The jacket the suspect was wearing over here on Jefferson in this shooting bears the laundry tag with the letter B 9738. See if there is a way you can check this laundry tag.”
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1:44 p.m.

Johnny Brewer and Butch Burroughs come out to the box office. They tell Julia Postal that it was too dark to see anything, but they think the man is still inside.
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“I’m going to call the police,” Postal tells Brewer. “You and Butch get on each of the exit doors and stay there.
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1:46 p.m.

Patrolman Bill Anglin, a close friend and neighbor of the slain officer, leans against his own squad car at Tenth and Patton. He still can’t believe it’s true. Yesterday afternoon he and Tippit had installed a new wheel bearing on J. D.’s 1953 Ford. Just a couple of hours ago the two of them knocked off for coffee at the Rebel Drive-In, as they often did. Now, J. D. was dead. For Anglin, it’s nothing short of a nightmare.
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The police dispatcher is trying to contact Sergeant Owens, who Anglin can see is engrossed in conversation with homicide detective James R. Leavelle. Officer Anglin reaches through the car window and picks up the radio mike. “I’m here at [Unit] 19’s [Owens] location. Message for him?”

“Ten-four. Have information that a suspect just went in the Texas Theater on West Jefferson,” the dispatcher says. “Suppose to be hiding in the balcony.”
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Anglin hangs up the transmitter and hollers across the street, “It’s just come over the radio that they’ve got a suspicious person in the Texas Theater!”
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Everyone sprints for their vehicles, adrenaline pumping.

The Texas Theater, on Jefferson Boulevard, is about six-tenths of a mile from where Tippit was shot. In less than two minutes, every police car in the area descends on the theater’s two-dozen or so unsuspecting patrons.

1:48 p.m.

Julia Postal punches the intercom in the box office and tells the projectionist that she has called the police. He wonders whether he should cut the film off, and she says, “No, let’s wait until they get here.”
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It seems the minute she hangs up the intercom, the place is swarming with squad cars, police officers, plainclothesmen, and deputy sheriffs—armed to the teeth.

“Watch him! He’s armed!” one of them shouts.

“I’ll get that son of a bitch if he’s in there,” another replies.
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Some of the officers remain outside trying to control the excited crowd materializing from nowhere, a real mob scene.
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Inside the theater, officers order the theater staff to turn up the house lights.
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Behind the stage Johnny Brewer is standing near the curtains that separate the audience and the exit door on the left side of the screen. When the house lights come up, he steps to the curtain and scans the astonished audience. There he is—the man he saw slip into the theater. He’s sitting in the center section, six or seven rows from the back of the theater. No sooner do the lights come up than the man stands up, and scoots to the aisle to his right. Police are pouring into the lobby. The suspect turns around and sits back down,
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this time in the third row from the back. Suddenly, Brewer hears someone rattling the exit door from the outside. The shoe store manager pushes the door open and is immediately grabbed by two officers as he is exiting. The alley is crawling with cops, some up on the theater’s fire escape.
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Officer Thomas A. Hutson puts a gun into Brewer’s stomach. “Put your hands up and don’t make a move.” Brewer is shaking.

“I’m not the one,” he stammers. “I just came back to open the door for you. I work up the street. There’s a guy inside that I was suspicious of.”

The officer can see that Brewer’s clothing—sport coat and tie—is different from the description of the suspect.

“Is he still there?” Hutson asks.

“Yes. I just seen him,” Brewer tells him, and leads the lawmen into the theater.
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1:50 p.m.

Patrolmen M. N. “Nick” McDonald, C. T. Walker, Ray Hawkins, and Thomas Hutson gather around Brewer as he points out the man in the brown shirt sitting in the main section of the theater on the ground floor, three rows from the back, fifth seat over. From the orientation of the stage looking out toward the audience, McDonald and Walker step out from behind the curtain and walk up the left center aisle and approach two men seated near the front—a diversionary tactic—and order them to their feet. They search them for weapons, all the while keeping an eye on the man in the brown sport shirt. McDonald then walks out of the row to the right center aisle and advances up the aisle. Officers Walker, Hawkins, and Hutson are shadowing McDonald from the left center aisle—the suspect between them. McDonald feigns interest in a man and woman seated across the aisle from the man in the brown shirt, but just as he gets even with him, McDonald spins and faces the suspect.
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*

“Get on your feet,” McDonald orders.

The man obeys and starts to raise his hands. Officers Walker, Hawkins, and Hutson are moving toward him from the opposite side. McDonald reaches for the suspect’s waist to check for a weapon.

“Well, it’s all over now,” the suspect says in a tone of resignation. In a flash, the man cocks his left fist and slugs McDonald between the eyes, knocking his cap off and forcing him backward into the seats. McDonald quickly recovers and swings back as they topple into the seats, McDonald shouting out, “I’ve got him,” though they end up with the man on top of McDonald.
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Officers Hutson, Walker, and Hawkins rush in from the other side. Nick McDonald is trying to push the suspect off, but he’s holding Nick down with his left hand and reaching for something in his waistband with the other hand. Hutson, in the row behind, reaches over the seats, wraps his right arm around the suspect’s neck and yanks him back until he’s stretched over the top of the seat. Officer Walker grabs the suspect’s left arm and struggles to hold on to it. McDonald jumps forward and grabs the man’s right hand, which is trying to pull a revolver out of his beltline. For a second or two, McDonald keeps the suspect from getting the gun out, but then it springs free.

“Look out! He’s got a gun!” someone yells.

McDonald, on the receiving end of the barrel, quickly grabs the cylinder of the revolver with his left hand to keep it from turning and firing a bullet. The suspect thrashes as the gun waves in McDonald’s direction.
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The officers are in a frenzy, a half-dozen hands desperately trying to get the damn gun out of the man’s hand.

“Let go of the gun!” a cop commands.

“I can’t,” the suspect says.
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Punches fly as an officer slams the butt of a shotgun against the back of the suspect’s head. McDonald gets his right hand on the butt of the pistol and starts to rip it out of the man’s hand. Just before he jerks it free, McDonald hears what he believes to be the snap of the hammer and feels a sting to the fleshy web of skin between his thumb and forefinger. The gun continues across his left cheek, leaving behind a four-inch scratch, from which blood trickles.
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Captain Westbrook can’t quite see what’s happening. “Has somebody got the gun?” he yells out. McDonald holds the gun out toward the aisle, where Detective Bob Carroll grabs it, saying, “I’ve got it!”
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Officer Walker pulls the suspect’s left arm around and Officer Hawkins snaps handcuffs on him.

“Don’t hit me anymore. I am not resisting arrest!” the suspect shouts, loud enough for nearby patrons to hear him. “I want to complain of police brutality!”

Captain Westbrook, who’s just heard Mrs. Markham tell him how Tippit’s killer shot him down like a dog, at point-blank range, can’t believe the gall of the man. Westbrook pushes his way into the aisle in front of the suspect and looks him right in the face—less than ten inches away.

“What’s your name?” Westbrook asks.

The suspect is silent.

“Get him out of here!” Westbrook shouts above the commotion.
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The officers on the suspect’s right start to pull him toward the center aisle, but the officers on the left are pulling in the opposite direction—inadvertently stretching the gunman between them.

“They’re violating my civil rights!” the suspect screams.

FBI agent Robert M. Barrett, standing nearby, can only shake his head. They’re not violating anything, he thinks to himself. Barrett has been observing the police actions since his arrival at the Book Depository nearly an hour ago. As the FBI agent who handles civil rights violations, Barrett knows that he’ll have to write a report on what he’s just witnessed.
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A WFAA-TV cameraman is in the lobby filming the suspect as police hustle him toward the front entrance. The suspect uses the opportunity to berate the police as he passes: “I want my lawyer. I know my rights. Typical police brutality. Why are you doing this to me?”
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Julia Postal, though safe in her box office, is shaking. She’s never seen a mob like the one on the sidewalk in front of the theater. Since police stormed into the theater, word has spread among the crowd that they’ve cornered the president’s killer. Few know that a police officer was shot nearby—not even Mrs. Postal.
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