The killing of Officer Tippit

The Warren Commission found that Oswald killed Tippit about 45 minutes after the assassination. Its reasons: two eyewitnesses saw the shooting and seven more saw the gunman fleeing with a revolver, and all nine identified Oswald; the cartridge cases found at the scene came from the revolver in Oswald’s possession when he was arrested; the revolver had been bought by mail under the name A. J. Hidell; and Oswald’s jacket was found along the gunman’s escape route. [1]

At least 12 people saw the man with the revolver near the scene. Waitress Helen Markham, at the corner about 50 feet away, watched the patrol car pull alongside a man, saw him talk to the officer through the window, and saw him shoot Tippit as the officer walked around the front of the car. Four bullets hit Tippit. The gunman walked away ejecting the empty cases and reloading. [2]

Three witnesses found four cartridge cases in the shrubbery at the corner. Every expert who testified said they were fired from Oswald’s revolver to the exclusion of all other weapons. [2]

The bullets were another matter. FBI examiner Cortlandt Cunningham explained that they were slightly smaller than the barrel, so they passed through it erratically and took inconsistent markings; even test bullets fired one after another could not be matched to the revolver. [2][3] Joseph Nicol of the Illinois crime bureau disagreed on one bullet and said it was fired from the same gun as the test bullets. [2][4]

Johnny Brewer, manager of a shoe store near the Texas Theatre, heard the police sirens and watched a man duck into his shop entrance, then slip into the theater without buying a ticket. Police arrested Oswald inside after a struggle. [2]

Critics raise three main points. First, timing: the housekeeper, Earlene Roberts, put Oswald at his rooming house at about 1 p.m., and some researchers argue he could not have reached 10th and Patton, nine-tenths of a mile away, in time. The Commission calculated that at a brisk pace he would have got there shortly after 1:15; the killing is on the police radio tape at about 1:16. [1]

Second, the bullets: the cartridge cases matched, but the FBI could not match the bullets to the revolver. Defenders of Oswald say that leaves room for a second gun; the Commission’s answer is that the cases and the witnesses are enough, and that the undersized bullets explain the poor markings. [2]

Third, motive: why would an innocent man shoot a policeman? If Oswald killed Tippit, it is hard to see him as a bystander who did not know he was being hunted, which is why the Tippit case matters so much to the overall argument. Theories that Tippit was sent to kill Oswald have no documentary support. [1]