BW - EP145—009: November 1963 With Jean Shepherd And JFK—JFK Has Passed, Oswald Is Arrested

All regularly scheduled network programming from every radio and TV station around the country was immediately suspended. This audio comes from shortly after 2PM eastern time from ABC. Right after the shooting, witness Howard Brennan notified the police that he was sitting across the street from the Texas School Book Depository, watching the President’s motorcade go by. He heard a shot come from above and looked up to see a man with a rifle fire another shot from the southeast corner window on the sixth floor. He said he had seen the same man minutes earlier looking through the window. Brennan gave a description of the shooter, and Dallas police subsequently broadcast descriptions at Dallas time 12:45., 12:48, and 12:55 p.m. At 12:45 fifteen minutes after President Kennedy was shot, Dallas police officer J.D. Tippit received a radio order to drive to the central Oak Cliff area as part of a concentration of police around the center of the city. At 12:54, Tippit radioed that he moved as directed. By then, several messages had been broadcast describing a suspect in Kennedy’s shooting as a five-foot-ten, slender white male. At roughly 1:10, Tippit was driving slowly eastward on East 10th street past the intersection at Patton Avenue when he pulled alongside a man who resembled the police description. Although conspiracy theorists dispute this, officially the man was twenty-four year-old Lee Harvey Oswald. Oswald walked over to Tippit's car and exchanged words with him through an open window. Tippit opened his car door and walked toward the front of the car. Oswald drew a handgun and fired five shots in rapid succession. Tippit was shot in the chest and head, dying almost instantly. His body was transported from the scene of the shooting by ambulance to Methodist Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 1:25 p.m. Meanwhile, Johnny Brewer, a nearby shoe store manager later testified that he saw Oswald ducking into the entrance alcove of his store. Suspicious, Brewer watched Oswald continue up the street and slip without paying into the nearby Texas Theatre. He alerted the theater's ticket clerk, who telephoned the police at about 1:40 p.m. As police arrived, the house lights were brought up and Brewer pointed out Oswald sitting near the rear of the theater. Police Officer Nick McDonald testified that he was the first to reach Oswald and that Oswald seemed ready to surrender saying, "Well, it is all over now." McDonald said that Oswald pulled out a pistol tucked into the front of his pants, then pointed the pistol at him, and pulled the trigger. McDonald stated that the pistol did not fire because the pistol's hammer came down on the webbing between the thumb and index finger as he grabbed it. McDonald also said that Oswald struck him, but that he struck back and Oswald was disarmed. As he was led from the theater, Oswald shouted he was a victim of police brutality. Soon after his arrest, Oswald encountered reporters, declared, "I didn't shoot anybody. They've taken me in because I lived in the Soviet Union. I'm just a patsy!" This is audio from an arranged press meeting later that day. The voice you’ll hear is that of Lee Harvey Oswald. Oswald was formally arraigned for the murder of Officer Tippit at 7:10 p.m. By early the next morning, he had been arraigned for the assassination of President Kennedy. At 2:38 p.m. Dallas time on Friday the 22nd aboard Air Force One, Lyndon Baines Johnson took the oath of office as the 36th President of the United States. Standing next to him as he took the oath were both his wife and Jacqueline Kennedy.