Tippit’s Partner Talks -
Exclusive: JFK Assassination Witness Speaks For
1st Time
CBS4 Investigative Reporter Jilda Unruh Contributed
To This Report
November 20, 2013
DALLAS (CBSMiami) – When President John Fitzgerald
Kennedy was cut down by an assassin, a chain of events began that included the
murder of a police officer, the capture of the alleged presidential assassin,
and the murder of the assassin.
In the 50 years since the Kennedy assassination, one
Dallas Police officer who was in the middle of the chaos that enveloped the
city in the hours and days that followed the murder has never shared his story
about what he saw, heard and did. Until now.
For the first time ever, R.C. Nelson, retired from
the Dallas Police, talked exclusively to CBSMiami.com about the pandemonium
that came after the assassin’s bullets rang out in Dallas. Nelson has never
spoken about the events, even to the Warren Commission.
On November 22, 1963, Nelson was working out of the
southwest substation in Dallas. He said that police were spread all over the
city guarding multiple areas.
“Only two people were working the south district,”
Nelson said, “my partner J.D. Tippit and me. Tippit was working the entire Oak
Cliff section.”
On a normal day, Nelson estimated there would have
been 10-12 squads covering the area.
Nelson said he was across the viaduct from the Texas
Book Depository when he heard the shots ring out in the cold Dallas air. The
police dispatch was almost immediately on the air with reports of shots fired.
What Nelson heard was the shots that would forever
change American history. President Kennedy, riding through Dealey Plaza in
Dallas was shot along with Texas Governor John Connolly. Kennedy was fatally
wounded by a second shot after the initial shot appeared to go through his
neck.
Nelson said he was on the scene within two minutes
and when he arrived, people were still on the ground and screaming. Nelson
asked a motorman when he got to the scene what had happened?
“Somebody shot and killed Kennedy,” Nelson recalled
the “motor jockey” (motor patrolman) saying. “He was up there (pointing to book
depository). I saw the rifle in the window when I looked up.” Nelson said the
motorman then said, “I saw Kennedy’s head blown off.”
Nelson contacted an inspector to ask what to do and
his superior told him to just be in the area.
It wasn’t long after the assassination of President
Kennedy that a second call came across the Dallas Police dispatch radio, this
time of an officer shot in Oak Cliff. The officer, J.D. Tippit, was Nelson’s
partner on “night shifts and deep night shifts,” but the two were not paired
together on November 22.
Officer Tippit was described by Nelson as a, “nice,
east Texas guy who loved his family and worked hard and did what he was
supposed to do, but wasn’t very curious. He liked to write his tickets and go
home. He had a bad habit of not looking at you when he was talking to you.”
Nelson said he had actually talked to Officer Tippit
before the fateful day in Dallas about his partner’s tendency toward avoiding
eye contact with subjects.
Official reports said that Officer Tippit pulled
over Lee Harvey Oswald based on a description that was broadcast over the
Dallas Police radio. Oswald then murdered Tippit before leaving the scene of
the murder.
Nelson said he believed that Oswald actually flagged
Officer Tippit down because he “can’t imagine Tippit pulling him (Oswald) over
and saying “come here.”
“I think he (Oswald) was amazed that he wasn’t
arrested after the shooting,” Nelson recalled. “The book depository was covered
with cops and he walks out! He didn’t appear to have a plan. He couldn’t go
home. So he hails a cab and then gets on a bus.”
Another aspect of Nelson’s belief that Tippit didn’t
seek out Oswald was that Tippit didn’t secure or guard his pistol and the first
shot hit the officer in the temple, suggesting Tippitt was looking away.
Oswald shot Tippit on 10th Street in Dallas and
Nelson and several others went to a library a block away.
“While we were preparing to go into the library, we
heard someone had gone into the Texas (movie) theater without paying,” Nelson
said. “It was about three blocks away and we converged on the Texas theater.”
Nelson said he first went to the back entrance, but
then that went to the front of the theater and entered the lobby.
Three police officers, Nick McDonald, C.T. Walker,
and Charles Harrison were bringing Oswald into the lobby.
“Apparently, Oswald hit McDonald, then pulled a gun
on him and one of the other (cops) knocked the gun away,” Nelson recalled.
“That’s when McDonald punched Oswald. Both of them had bumps on their heads. I
watched as Oswald came out of the theater in handcuffs.”
But that’s not where Nelson’s brush with history, or
the story of Oswald ended.
Two days after the assassination of Kennedy and with
an entire nation in mourning, Nelson was assigned to the basement’s main door
entrance from city hall. Oswald was scheduled to be moved from city hall to the
county jail and he was being moved through the basement.
Nelson said all of the television cameras, which
broadcast the transfer and what happened in the basement, entered through the
door where he was standing guard.
As Oswald was moving through the basement, Nelson
was approximately 20 feet away when he heard a shot ring out and then chaos.
Chicago businessman Jack Ruby had gotten into the basement and shot Oswald with
a .38 revolver.
Nelson said Ruby was bent over and he heard someone
yell, “Get his gun.”
“I grabbed
for his hands and didn’t find a gun,” Nelson said. “But I managed to manhandle
him into the basement jail house office and handcuffed him.”
Ruby reportedly said, “It’s me, it’s Jack,” right
after he fired the fatal shot at Oswald. Ruby knew several Dallas Police
officers, but Nelson said he was not familiar with him.
What hasn’t been shared before is what Nelson said
happened just before the shooting and then in the immediate aftermath.
According to Nelson, right before Oswald was brought
to the basement, a Dallas Police decoy car was brought to the basement and
plain clothes cops were put inside the car to distract the media from the real
transfer vehicle.
The decoy car drove up the north ramp, which Nelson
said was actually the entry ramp to the basement.
“They drove up the north ramp which was actually the
entry ramp into the basement and drove around the block,” Nelson said.
Nelson said the lieutenant driving the decoy car
came walking back through his area after parking in the basement again. Nelson
said he was positive that Ruby had not passed him to get into the basement.
According to Nelson, Lieutenant Sam Pierce said Ruby
walked right by the decoy car and walked down the north ramp into the basement.
Shortly after the shooting, however, Nelson was told Dallas Chief of Police
Jesse Curry wanted to see him.
When Nelson got to Chief Curry’s office, he saw
Lieutenant Pierce was already in the office. The chief told Nelson, “R.C., this
isn’t going to be held against you with all the TV cameras that were coming
into the basement.”
Nelson thought Chief Curry was implying that Ruby
had gotten past him. Nelson said he told the chief that, “You can tell them
anything you want, but Ruby didn’t come by me!”
In the days that followed, Officer Tippit would be
laid to rest and when Nelson saw his former partner’s wife to try to comfort
her was hard.
“The first time I had contact with her; it was
tough,” Nelson recalled. “You’ve got a partner and you see his wife and kid at
his funeral. (Choking up) It was pretty tough.”
Over the next year, the Warren Commission investigated
the assassination of President Kennedy and the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald.
Despite his being right in the middle of the historical events, Nelson said he
was never called to testify.
“I thought it was kind of strange, because all
during the Warren Commission hearings, no one knew how Ruby got into the
basement,” Nelson said.
As the decades have gone by, Nelson said he’s had a
chance to talk about the events, but said he didn’t “feel like talking about
it.”
“Several authors contacted me and I just didn’t feel
like it,” Nelson said. “But lately, many of my family members have tried to get
me to tell my story.”
R.C. also said that some authors have even alleged
that he was “involved in the conspiracy.”
“I wasn’t,” Nelson said. “I want my family to have something
recorded so my great-grand kids will know the real facts.”
It’s been 50 years a cold and sunny November day in
1963 became such a nightmare that tens of millions of Americans can still tell
you exactly where they were when they heard the news. For R.C. Nelson, the
memories of the day Camelot died are still crystal clear.
(Disclosure:
R.C. Nelson is the brother of CBS4 News’ Gary Nelson)
BK: Vincent Bugliosi (Reclaiming History, p. 66)
refers to R.C. as Ronald C. Nelson, who is ordered, along with Tippit, to move
into central Oak Cliff, though Nelson heads to center city instead.
Also note that he doesn’t say there wasn’t a
conspiracy, he says that he wasn’t involved in one.
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