Wednesday, November 11, 2009

JFK Investigation Photos Now Online

by ERIC KREINDLER / NBC Dallas-Fort Worth News

Photographs taken by Dallas police and used as evidence in the criminal investigation following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy are now available for public viewing.

The University of North Texas Libraries' Digital Projects unit placed the photographs in its Portal to Texas History.

UNT recently received a grant from the Summerlee Foundation to digitize 404 images taken by the Dallas Police Department during the week following Kennedy’s assassination. The Dallas Municipal Archives, a division of the City of Dallas City Secretary’s Office, possesses all of the original investigation files except for those that have been transferred permanently to the federal investigation collection held at the National Archives.

“We are delighted to be working with the Portal to Texas History to make the collections of the Dallas Municipal Archives more accessible, and look forward to a long relationship,” said City of Dallas City Secretary Deborah Watkins.

Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert said, “it’s critical that these important photographs not only be preserved, but be available to all for study and scholarship.”

The black-and-white photographs include the “sniper’s nest” in downtown Dallas’ Texas School Book Depository Building, where Oswald allegedly fired on Kennedy’s motorcade; the back and front yards of the boarding house at 214 Neely where Oswald lived; Dealey Plaza; the intersection at Tenth Street and Patton Avenue where Oswald allegedly fatally shot Dallas patrolman J.D. Tippit; interiors of the Texas Theater, where Oswald was arrested by Dallas police; and the basement of Dallas City Hall, where Jack Ruby shot and killed Oswald on Nov. 24, 1963.

Source: NBC Dallas-Fort Worth News

1 comment:

merbeau said...

Actually I agree with Holland and Rush because in the early Zapruder frames (140 to 149) an almost simultaneous leftward turn of JFK, Mrs. Kennedy, Hickey and Connally are clearly visible and occur all within a ½ second of each other.

This simultaneity suggests that the leftward head turns of these four people were probably due to the same cause (i.e., a stimulus as in a rifle shot).

I believe that Oswald originally intended to shoot at a later point down Elm Street from a prone position (i.e., the arrangement of boxes in the depository window) but when the limousine turned the corner the target must have looked so close he stood up to fire a shot and either went blank on the presence of the traffic light or failed to realize the bullet would be higher at that close range than the aiming point which was zeroed for 100 yards and the first shot nicked the botton of the traffic light arm and hit the curb.

Having missed this opportunity Oswald would have to drop down to the prone position or remain standing (which witnesses say he was standing) and took time to aim fire again.

A total of 11 seconds instead of a mean of six seconds to fire three shots would have been required under this scenario (i.e., 1st shot occured either before Zapruder started filming or just in the beginning) which was well within Oswald’s capability.