JD Tippit

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JD Tippit (born September 18, 1924 in Clarksville , Red River County , Texas , † November 22, 1963 in Dallas ) was an American police officer. He was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald shortly after his assassination attempt on John F. Kennedy in Dallas.

Life

Tippit was the son of Edgar Lee Tippit, a farmer, and Lizzie Mae Rush. It is often reported that "JD" stands for " Jefferson Davis, " but according to what his older brother said, "JD" was not an abbreviation for anything in particular. Tippit attended school through tenth grade and grew up a Baptist . He joined the United States Army on July 21, 1944 and was assigned to the 513rd Paratrooper Regiment of the 17th Airborne Division. Tippit took part in Operation Varsity , the airborne operation to cross the Rhine in March 1945. He received the Bronze Star for this and remained in active service until June 20, 1946.

Tippit married Marie Frances Gasway on December 26, 1946 and had three children with her: Charles Allen (* 1950), Brenda Kay (* 1953) and Curtis Glenn (* 1958). First he worked for the Dearborn Stove Company, then from March 1948 to September 1949 at Sears, Roebuck and Company in the installation department. Then he moved to Lone Star, Texas and tried his hand at ranching.

From January 1950 to June 1952, Tippit attended the United States Department of Veteran's Vocational School in Bogata , Texas. After that, on July 28, 1952, he was hired by the Dallas police as a patrolman. According to reports from his superiors, Officer Tippit was competent and was recognized for his bravery in 1956 when he disarmed a fugitive.

When he died in 1963, he was making $ 5,880 a year as a police officer in Dallas (the equivalent of about $ 49,007 today).

death

On November 22, 1963, Tippit was on patrol 78, on a route in southern Oak Cliff, a suburb of Dallas. After the assassination attempt on John F. Kennedy , he was ordered from headquarters to downtown Oak Cliff. Between 1:06 p.m. and 1:10 p.m., almost 40 minutes after Kennedy was shot, Tippit met Lee Harvey Oswald , who was walking. Tippit spoke to him through the open side window and got out, whereupon Oswald knocked him down with four shots. Oswald had left his place of work, the Texas School Book Depository , immediately after the shooting at Kennedy . He had made it back to his guesthouse on winding paths on foot, by bus and taxi, where he had arrived shortly before 1 p.m. Why Tippit stopped Oswald is controversial. Gerald Posner and Vincent Bugliosi state that Tippit responded to the description of the Kennedy murderer's perpetrator that the police radio had given shortly before. After David E. Kaiser , Tippit had no radio contact during those minutes - otherwise he would have been ordered, like all police officers from Dallas, to Dealey Plaza , the site of the attack. Contradicting testimonies about which direction Oswald was running before the encounter led Dale K. Myers to hypothesize that Oswald panicked when he saw the police car, turned around and thereby attracted Tippit's attention.

On the evening of the attack, Robert F. Kennedy and the new President Lyndon Johnson Tippit's widow offered condolences over the phone. The plight of the Tippit family also moved a lot of Americans and so a total of 647,579 US dollars were donated to them after the murder. One of the largest single donations was $ 25,000 from Abraham Zapruder after selling his film The Kennedy Assassination.

JD Tippit's memorial service was held at Beckley Hills Baptist Church on November 25, followed by a funeral at Laurel Land Memorial Park in Dallas.

reception

In January 1964, Tippit was posthumously the Medal of Valor of the National Police Hall of Fame awarded and he also received the Police Medal of Honor , the Police Cross and the Citizens Traffic Commission Award of Heroism .

In films, Tippit was portrayed by Price Carson in Oliver Stones JFK and in 1992 by David Duchovny in Jack Ruby .

In various conspiracy theories that are in circulation about the Kennedy murder, it is doubted that Oswald Tippit's murderer was: There was not enough time to get from his pension to the crime scene, the bullets did not come from his revolver, or it did not been Oswald's revolver. Others speculate that Tippit was commissioned by the "real backers" of the Kennedy murder to kill Oswald, but that Oswald got ahead of him.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Dale K. Myers, Biography: A Boy Named JD , JD Tippit Official Home Page .
  2. ↑ Vincent Bugliosi : Four Days in November. The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy , WWNorton, New York 2007, p. 116 f.
  3. ↑ Vincent Bugliosi: Four Days in November. The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy , WWNorton, New York 2007, pp. 99-102 and 110 f.
  4. ↑ Gerald Posner, Case Closed. Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK , Random House, New York 1993, pp. 273 f .; Vincent Bugliosi: Four Days in November. The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy , WWNorton, New York 2007, p. 116.
  5. ^ David E. Kaiser: The Road to Dallas. The Assassination of John. F. Kennedy. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA 2008, p. 368.
  6. ^ Dale K. Myers: With Malice. Lee Harvey Oswald and the Murder of Officer JD Tippit . Oak Cliff Press, Milford 1998, quoted in David E. Kaiser: The Road to Dallas. The Assassination of John. F. Kennedy. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA 2008, p. 367 f.
  7. ↑ James D. Perry: Kennedy, John F. Assassination of . In: Peter Knight (Ed.): Conspiracy Theories in American History. To Encyclopedia . ABC Clio, Santa Barbara, Denver and London 2003, Vol. 1, pp. 391 f.

literature

  • Dale K. Myers: With Malice. Lee Harvey Oswald and the Murder of Officer JD Tippit . Oak Cliff Press, Milford 1998 ISBN 0-9662709-7-5

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Tippit, JD
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American policeman
DATE OF BIRTH September 18, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Clarksville , Red River County , Texas
DATE OF DEATH November 22, 1963
Place of death Dallas , Texas