Part 8

We crossed the Commerce Street viaduct and turned, made a right turn to go under the viaduct on North Beckley to go up to 10th Street. As we passed, just before we got to Colorado on Beckley, an ambulance with a police car behind it passed us en route to Methodist Hospital.

We went on to the scene of the shooting where we found a squad car parked against the right or the south curb on 10th Street, with a pool of blood on the left-hand side of it near the side of the car.

Tippit had already been removed. The first man that came up to me, he said, "The man that shot him was a white male about 5'10", weighing 160 to 170 pounds, had on a jacket and a pair of dark trousers, and brown bushy hair."

At this point the first squad rolled up, and that would have been squad 105, which had been dispatched from downtown. An officer named Joe Poe, and I believe his partner was a boy named Jez.

I told him to stay at the scene and guard the car and talk to as many witnesses as they could find to the incident, and that we were going to start checking the area.

Mr. BELIN. Now, let me interrupt you here, sergeant. Do you remember the name of the person that gave you the description?

Mr. HILL. No. I turned him over to Poe, and I didn't even get his name.

Mr. BELIN. Had anyone at anytime given you any cartridge cases of any kind?

Mr. HILL. No; they had not. This came much later.

Mr. BELIN. Go ahead if you would, please.

Mr. HILL. All right, I took the key to Poe's car. Another person came up, and we also referred him to Poe, that told us the man had run over into the funeral home parking lot. That would be Dudley Hughes' parking lot in the 400 block of East Jefferson--and taken off his jacket.

Mr. BELIN. You turned this man over to Poe, too?

Mr. HILL. Yes, sir.

Mr. BELIN. I notice in the radio log transcript, which is marked Sawyer Deposition Exhibit A, that at 1:26 p.m., between 1:26 p.m., and 1:32 p.m., there was a call from No. 19 to 531. 531 is your home number, I believe? Your radio home station?

Mr. HILL. Yes.

Mr. BELIN. That says, "One of the men here at the service station that saw him seems to think he is in this block, 400 block East Jefferson, behind his service station. Give me some more squads over here." "Several squads check out." Was that you?

Mr. HILL. That was Owens.

Mr. BELIN. Were you calling in at all?

Mr. HILL. No. That is Bud Owens.

Mr. BELIN. You had left Owens' car at this time?

Mr. HILL. I left Owens' car and had 105 car at this time.

Mr. BELIN. Where did you go?

Mr. HILL. At this time, about the time this broadcast came out, I went around and met Owens. I whipped around the block. I went down to the first intersection east of the block where all this incident occurred, and made a right turn, and traveled one block, and came back up on Jefferson.

Mr. BELIN. All right.

Mr. HILL. And met Owens in front of two large vacant houses on the north side of Jefferson that are used for the storage of secondhand furniture.

By then Owens had information also that some citizen had seen the man running towards these houses.

At this time Sergeant Owens was there; I was there; Bill Alexander was there; it was probably about this time that C. T. Walker, an accident investigator got there; and with Sergeant Owens and Walker and a couple more officers standing outside, Bill Alexander and I entered the front door of the house that would have been to the west--it was the farthest to the west of the two--shook out the lower floor, made sure nobody was there, and made sure that all the entrances from either inside or outside of the building to the second floor were securely locked.

Then we went back over to the house next door, which would have been the first one east of this one, and made sure it was securely locked, both upstairs and downstairs. There was no particular sign of entry on this building at all. At this point we came back out to the street, and I asked had Owens received any information from the hospital on Tippit.

And he said they had just told him on channel 2 that he was dead. I got back in 105's car, went back around to the original scene, gave him his car keys back, and left his car there, and at this point he came up to me with a Winston cigarette package.

Mr. BELIN. Who was this?

Mr. HILL. This was Poe.

Mr. BELIN. You went back to the Tippit scene?

Mr. HILL. Right.

Mr. BELIN. You went back to 400 East 10th Street?

Mr. HILL. Right. And Poe showed me a Winston cigarette package that contained three spent jackets from shells that he said a citizen had pointed out to him where the suspect had reloaded his gun and dropped these in the grass, and that the citizen had picked them up and put them in the Winston package.

I told Poe to maintain the chain of evidence as small as possible, for him to retain these at that time, and to be sure and mark them for evidence, and then turn them over to the crime lab when he got there, or to homicide.

The next place I went was, I walked up the street about half a block to a church. That would have been on the northeast corner of 10th Street in the 400 block, further west of the shooting, and was preparing to go in when there were two women who came out and said they were employees inside and had been there all the time. I asked them had they seen anybody enter the church, because we were still looking for possible places for the suspect to hide. And they said nobody passed them, nobody entered the church, but they invited us to check the rest of the doors and windows and go inside if we wanted to.

An accident investigator named Bob Apple was at the location at that time, and we were standing there together near his car when the call came out that the suspect had been seen entering the Texas Theatre.

Mr. BELIN. What did you do then?

Mr. HILL. We both got in Apple's car and went to Jefferson, made a right on Jefferson, headed west from our location, and pulled up as close to the front of the theatre as we could. There were already two or three officers at the location. I asked if it was covered off at the back.

They said, "We got the building completely covered off."

I entered the right or the east most door to the south side of the theatre, and in the process or in the meantime, from the time we heard the first call to the time we got to the theatre, the call came on over the radio that the suspect was believed to be in the balcony.

We went up to the balcony, ran up the stairs, which would have been also on the east side. And the picture was still on. I remember yelling to either the manager or the assistant manager or an employee, maybe just an usher, to turn on as many lights as they could. Went up to the balcony, and Detective Bentley was up there, and a uniform officer, and here again there was another deputy sheriff. He was a uniform man.

There were some six people in the balcony, and we checked them out and none of them appeared to fit the physical description that we had of the man that shot Tippit.

I went over and opened the fire escape door or fire exit door and stepped out on the fire escape, and Capt. C. E. Talbert was down on the ground. He said, "Did you find anything?"

And I said, "Not up here."

He said, "Have you checked the roof?"

There was a ladder leading from the fire escape that goes on up to the top of the roof, and the deputy sheriff said, "I will get that for you." And he started up it.

The captain said words to the effect that, "Make sure you don't overlook him in there." So we went back inside and we didn't find him in the balcony. We started downstairs and these would have been the west stairs on the west side of the balcony. About the time I got to the lower floor, I heard a shout similar to a "I've got him," which came from the lower floor. And I ran through the west door from the lobby into the downstairs part of the theatre proper.

Mr. BELIN. Let me stop you right there. When you say it is the west door, as I remember this theatre, the entrance faces to the south, is that correct?

Mr. HILL. Right.

Mr. BELIN. But then when you walked in, you walked in straight headed north, and then you had to turn to the right?

Mr. HILL. So once you turned, I went up. That would have made me come down the north, go up the south stairway to the balcony, and come down the north stairway.

Mr. BELIN. All right. Now, you got down to the first floor. As you go in to face the screen, the right side of the theatre when you are facing the screen, you are facing roughly east?

Mr. HILL. Right side of the theatre would have been south.

Mr. BELIN. South as you face the screen. All right, now.

Mr. HILL. So I went through the north lower door.

Mr. BELIN. All right.

Mr. HILL. Came down the north stairway, and the commotion would have been to my right or just south of the center of the theatre near the back. Went over, and as I ran to them I saw some officers struggling with a white male.

I reached out and grabbed the left arm of the suspect, and just before I got to him I heard somebody yell, "Look out, he's got a gun."

I was on the same row with the suspect. The man on the row immediately behind him was an officer named Hutson. McDonald was on the other side of the suspect from me in the same aisle.

Two officers, C. T. Walker and Ray Hawkins, were in the row in front of us holding the suspect from the front and forcing him backwards and down into the seat. And to McDonald's right reaching over, and I don't recall which row he was on, was an officer named Bob Carroll. And then Paul Bentley and K. E. Lyons, who was Carroll's partner, they were both in the special service bureau, also was there. They came up at various intervals while all this was going on.

We finally got the man subdued to the point where we had control of him and his legs pinned and his arms pinned. I said, "Let's handcuff him." And being that I was working in plainclothes and working in personnel, didn't have a pair of handcuffs, and I asked Hawkins if he had. And he said, "Yes."

And I said, "Let's get them."

And Hawkins and I handcuffed him while the others held him.

Mr. BELIN. You said you were working in plainclothes?

Mr. HILL. Yes.

Mr. BELIN. Did you have any hat on?

Mr. HILL. Yes; I did have a hat.

Mr. BELIN. I want to hand you what I will mark as G. L. Hill Deposition Exhibit A, and ask you to state if you know what this is.

Mr. HILL. Yes, sir; this is a picture that was made about the time when we were actually putting the handcuffs on the suspect in the theatre. That may have been a split second before or a split second after, or right as we completed the putting on of the handcuffs.

Mr. BELIN. Do you recognize any people in there?

Mr. HILL. This would have been the suspect [pointing].

Mr. BELIN. Now, the suspect is a man who you can see parts of the profile from the left side of his face. He appears to be seated or lower than the others?

Mr. HILL. Lower than the other people in the picture.

Mr. BELIN. Then there is a person with a hat on to the right.

Mr. HILL. To the immediate right of the suspect, and that is me.

Mr. BELIN. Then there is a man with a cigar who is looking over the suspect?

Mr. HILL. That is Detective Paul Bentley.

Mr. BELIN. Now there is a person with light-colored hair that appears to have his hands----

Mr. HILL. That would be C. T. Walker.

Mr. BELIN. Then there is another person that is in the extreme left-foreground part of the picture. Do you know who that is?

Mr. HILL. Capt. W. R. Westbrook.

Mr. BELIN. Then a party with a hat on. Do you know who that is?

Mr. HILL. I have no idea.

Mr. BELIN. That is to the left?

Mr. HILL. No, sir.

Mr. BELIN. Then there is, you can barely see maybe a police hat. Is that anything you can recognize?

Mr. HILL. Not from that; no, sir.

Mr. BELIN. All right, go ahead, sir.

You say that you and Ray Hawkins handcuffed the suspect?

Mr. HILL. At about this time Captain Westbrook and a man who was later in the day identified to me as, I believe his name was Barnett, an FBI agent----

Mr. BELIN. Would it be Barrett?

Mr. HILL. Yes.

Mr. BELIN. Do you remember his first name?

Mr. HILL. Bob was identified to me later in the day by Captain Westbrook. Came in from, I presume they came in from the north fire exit, which would have actually been coming in from outside, and came over to us, and Captain Westbrook instructed us to get the man out of there as soon as possible.

And at the same time instructed some of the other uniform officers to stay there and protect the scene, and call the crime lab. This was the actual scene where the arrest was made.

Mr. BELIN. Let me stop you right there. Do you know how this FBI agent happened to be there at the time?

Mr. HILL. I heard later, and--but not actually to my own knowledge, that he was riding with Captain Westbrook.

To my knowledge, I don't know this, but I understand he had ridden out from town with Captain Westbrook, that he was gravitating toward the incident in Oak Cliff, and had arrived at the theatre just possibly before we came in, or right after we went in, and was still outside.

Mr. BELIN. All right.

Mr. HILL. We started moving the suspect down the aisle, which would have been walking him north to the exit on that side until we got to the aisle that would have been dividing the center section and the north section of the theatre.

And there we formed a more or less wedge formation with C. T. Walker in front, Bob Carroll, I believe was on the suspect's left, K. E. Lyons was on his right, and Paul Bentley and I were to the rear.

I was on the left. I would have been to the suspect's left-rear side.

Paul Bentley would have been to the right-rear side.

At this point this is the first time I remember encountering any newspapermen or cameras, but as we walked into the lobby there was a man shooting movies.

Mr. BELIN. Movies?

Mr. HILL. He was from channel 8, but who he was, I don't know. He was a short, rather heavy-set fellow with kinky hair. This I remember about him.

We walked the suspect out the right front or the north door. No, wait a minute, we have lost our directions again. We walked him out the west door of the theatre into a squad car, which was out front. Some of the officers that were still outside had the crowd parted back to where nobody got to us or to the suspect.

But there were shouts at this time from the crowd of, "That is him. We ought to kill him. String him up. Hang him.", et cetera and so on.

Mr. BELIN. Any other calls from the crowd?

Mr. HILL. Not that I can recall. There was quite a bit of confusion, but we kept moving.

Mr. BELIN. Let me stop you right there. You mentioned that when you were coming down from the balcony to the first floor, or in the process of going into the first floor, you heard an officer or someone yell something along the effect, "I've got him."

Mr. HILL. Right.

Mr. BELIN. Did you hear anyone else yell or make any other statements?

First, I will ask you this. Did you hear the suspect make any statement of any kind?

Mr. HILL. Not any distinguishable statement that I can specifically recall. Later in the course of trying to piece this thing together for a report, I believe it was McDonald and Hutson that stated, and we put it in the report that way, that the suspect yelled, "This is it."

Mr. BELIN. Did you hear that with your own ears? That you can remember?

Mr. HILL. No, sir; not as a distinguishable specific "This is it," no.

As much confusion and all going on, I didn't distinguish that. Now if we can back up a little bit to where we made the, got him handcuffed in the theatre, before we started moving out with him, he started, Oswald or the suspect at this point, we didn't know who he was, so we will keep on calling him the suspect, started making statements about "I want a lawyer. I know my rights. Typical police brutality. Why are you doing this to me."

As as we continued to move him down the aisle out to the aisle dividing the two sections, out into the lobby of the theatre, he began yelling words similar to, "Typical police brutality."

And once we got actually outside the door of the theatre, from there to the period of time that we got to the car, with all the crowd and commotion and all, I don't recall any further statements of his until we got in the car.

Mr. BELIN. All right, let me stop there before you testify about getting into the car. Do you have anything else to add to the statement prior to getting into the car?

Mr. HILL. Not that I can recall.

Mr. BELIN. Did you hear the suspect say anything while you were trying to subdue him, or, "I am not resisting arrest?"

Mr. HILL. No; I don't recall a statement to that effect.

Mr. BELIN. Did you hear any officer say anything to the suspect?

Mr. HILL. About the time we got him subdued and handcuffed, I know that Hutson asked me about did I hear the gun click.

Hutson was the one that was behind him and was pulling him backward, off balance. He was probably, as near as I could determine from the position, was probably the second officer to him.

In other words, McDonald made the initial contact, and then Hutson and then probably Walker and Hawkins with Walker, and then Hawkins, in that order, getting into the scuffle attempting to subdue him and keep him from using the gun.

Mr. BELIN. What did you reply to this question?

Mr. HILL. I told him no. Because apparently this had happened in the interim from the time of the first yell until I got there, and with the scuffling of feet, unless you would be right at it, I don't know that you would hear it.

Mr. BELIN. Did you hit the suspect at all?

Mr. HILL. No; I did not.

Mr. BELIN. Did anyone else hit the suspect?

Mr. HILL. No one that I know of. When we got him subdued, he had a small laceration on the left eyebrow, and what appeared to be a bruise on the upper-left eyebrow and down along his check, but an actual lick, to see this done, I did not see.

Mr. BELIN. Did you hear any police officer make any remark such as "Kill a policeman, will you," or something along that line?

Mr. HILL. No, sir; not at this point I didn't. There was a--you want----

Mr. BELIN. Let's stop there before we get in the car.

Mr. HILL. There were some statements made in the car similar to this, in talking about killing a policeman, but I didn't hear any at the time in the theatre or from the theatre to the car.

Mr. BELIN. I want to try to cut off this thing in segments. Did you hear any policeman make any other statements to him during this scuffle?

Mr. HILL. No; everybody was saying, "Look out," and "Get this arm," or "Watch that leg," or "Make sure you've got a good hold on him."

But as far as any direct quotes to the suspect, or him being called anything such as a cop killer or statements that you have killed a police officer, you have killed a cop, or anything of that type, I did not hear any.

Mr. BELIN. Did you see the suspect hitting any police officer?

Mr. HILL. Did I see the suspect hitting a police officer?

Mr. BELIN. Yes.

Mr. HILL. No, sir; I did not. I saw his left arm flying about wildly about the time when I got there. That is what I latched on to, but I didn't actually identify any direct blows.

Mr. BELIN. Did you see any movements of the suspect other than the left arm flailing?

Mr. HILL. He was fighting and turning and making an attempt to free himself of the hold that the officers had on him. As to actually hitting anybody or to actually seeing the suspect with a gun in his hand, I did not.

Mr. BELIN. I hand you what has been marked as "G. L. Hill Deposition Exhibit B." State if you know what this is.

Mr. HILL. This is known to be a picture that was made still inside the theatre as we were moving down the aisle, I believe, to get him to the aisle that divided the two sections.

Now specifically, the exact point in the theatre where this was made, I don't know.

Mr. BELIN. Do you recognize anything?

Mr. HILL. There are three people in this picture that I recognize. The officer with the white uniform hat on that is in the foreground looking at the picture, would be to the left side, is C. T. Walker. The suspect, and what is an open collar, and what appears to be a T-shirt from here, looking almost directly at the camera with his face practically covered by the officer's cap, is a man later identified to us as Lee Harvey Oswald.

And the man in the suit looking at the camera with a cigar in his mouth is Detective Paul Bentley.

There is, to Mr. Bentley's left, part of another officer that is apparently wearing a suit with only part of his suit and his shirt and his left hand showing. That cannot be recognized, but I will have to admit I think it is me.

And there is a faint image there, if you get the light--that is what I am trying to see--very faintly--if we had a--yes, that is going to be me. What we need is to get the light in at an angle.

Mr. BELIN. If you hold it a little bit to your right?

Mr. HILL. Yes; that is going to be me.

Mr. BELIN. Do you know who this person is with the helmet at the extreme left of the person with the helmet?

Mr. HILL. I do not recognize him specifically, but just trying to identify that much of him, I would say it could be an officer named L. E. Gray, but I can't make positive identification.

Mr. BELIN. Okay, sergeant.

By the way, what is the suspect wearing? You mentioned a T-shirt in the picture.

Do you remember what else he had on?

Mr. HILL. He had on a dark--I don't recall it being a solid brown--shirt, but it was a dark-brownish-looking sports shirt, and dark trousers. This I specifically remember.

Mr. BELIN. Any jacket?

Mr. HILL. No, sir; he didn't have a jacket on at this time.

Mr. BELIN. All right, go ahead.

Mr. HILL. I understand a light-colored jacket was found in the parking lot of the funeral home, as a man had previously stated, but I don't recall actually seeing this jacket.

Mr. BELIN. All right, anything else that anyone else said prior to the time you got to the car?

Mr. HILL. Not that I can recall, sir; other than, as I was saying, as we went out, the crowd was jeering, making some threats and calling out things.

If at this time the suspect said anything, I didn't hear him.

And we were moving quite rapidly to get him into the car.

Mr. BELIN. Handing you what has been marked "G. L. Hill Exhibit C," I will ask you to state if you know what this is?

Mr. HILL. This is a picture of the Texas Theatre on West Jefferson, and it is a picture that I believe was made after we left the location with the suspect.

Mr. BELIN. Why do you say that?

Mr. HILL. Because the car that we left with the suspect in was parked right here.

Mr. BELIN. You are pointing to a position ahead of the Dallas Police Car No. 151, which appears in the picture?

Mr. HILL. That's right.

Mr. BELIN. Would that be about the size of the crowd that was there, as you remember it?

Mr. HILL. The crowd was split up into two groups at that time, on each side of the theatre entrance.

Mr. BELIN. You mean by the time you brought the suspect out?

Mr. HILL. Yes; the area immediately in front of the theatre looking to the car was open at the time.

Mr. BELIN. Who opened it?

Mr. HILL. The crowd had been kept back by some officers who had been left outside to cover off the front of the theatre when the rest of us entered.

Mr. BELIN. Apart from the fact that the crowd was split when you led the suspect out, does this appear to be about the number of people there?

Mr. HILL. No, sir. I would say probably this picture appears to me to contain 75 to 100 people, and I would say probably at the time that we came out of the theatre, by just glancing on both sides as we moved between the two groups to the car, I would estimate the crowd was probably about 200.

Mr. BELIN. All right; anything else up to the time you got to the car that anyone said or did that you haven't related, that you can remember now?

Mr. HILL. Not that I can recall, sir.