Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Move grows for memorial to Dallas officer killed by Oswald after JFK assassination

by ROY APPLETON / The Dallas Morning News

Forty-seven years after Lee Harvey Oswald gunned down Dallas police Officer J.D. Tippit in north Oak Cliff, the talk is getting serious about establishing a permanent memorial to the time, place and man.

Michael Amonett, president of the Old Oak Cliff Conservation League, says he has begun researching what's required to get a state historical marker placed near the shooting site on 10th Street east of Patton Avenue.

"He gave his life for his city and his country," Amonett said. "If not for him, they might not have caught" Oswald. The accused assassin of President John F. Kennedy was apprehended at the Texas Theatre after the Tippit shooting.

"If we could get it done by the 50th anniversary [in 2013], that would be cool," he said.

Farris Rookstool, an authority on the Kennedy assassination, said he would gladly help with the project.

"I would see it as a wonderful gift to the memory of J.D. Tippit and the other officers who assisted on the case," said Rookstool, a former assassination records custodian for the FBI.

The neighborhood around 10th and Patton will soon have few physical ties to 1963. Homes have been built there in recent years. And the Dallas school district is clearing land for a new Adamson High School.

"There's not going to be any historical footprint to remember that time," Rookstool said. "With people dying and everything changing [in the area], a marker would be a fantastic thing."

And Amonett said school property could be a good place to put one.

Marie Tippit, the officer's widow, said she was approached about a marker not long after the shooting. She said she's not sure why the idea fizzled.

"I think it would be a wonderful idea," she said. "It's a piece of history, and that's where he was killed, and there should be a marker there."

Source: Dallas Mornng News

1 comment:

Unknown said...

It would be nice - and very fitting - if a memorial could be placed near the spot where he fell.
The State Marker is great, of course, but something at the site of his murder would forever preserve the brave man's memory for the local population who he served so well.

Barry
London