Adrian D. Hamby, a 19-year-old Arlington State University student, drove east on Jefferson into the heart of Oak Cliff. Hamby was in a daze, having just heard the news that President Kennedy had been shot. He had also heard a report that a police officer had been shot in Dallas, but he didn’t know where. Hamby was headed for his part-time job as a page at the Jefferson Branch Library located just two blocks from the Tippit murder scene. Hamby’s choice of the clothing that day - a gray sweater and gray slacks - was about to propel the young student into a near fatal encounter.

Hamby swung his car south off Jefferson onto Denver and nosed into a dirt parking area for library employees. As he climbed out of his car, Hamby noticed a crowd of policemen near the intersection of Jefferson and Marsalis. He thought there had been car wreck on the corner. Suddenly, two plainclothesmen appeared out of nowhere and grabbed him.

"Sir, what are you doing in this area," one of them demanded.
"I work here at the library. I’m a page," Hamby replied unsure if this was some kind of joke.
"Well listen," the man replied. "Someone just shot and killed a police officer in the vicinity and we think the suspect is loose. Do us a favor. Go into the library, get a hold of management, tell them to lock the doors and not let anyone inside until we secure the area."
Hamby nodded, turned and sprinted across the library lawn, up the steps and into the front door to carry out the instructions.

At Tenth and Patton, Patrolman Charles T. Walker pulled to the curb near Tippit’s squad car. One of two newsmen in Walker’s car got out; the other waited patiently for the patrolman to finish talking with Officer Joe Poe.

Poe gave Walker the suspect’s description. Poe’s partner, Leonard E. Jez, had been stranded at Tenth and Patton ever since Sergeant Hill had commandeered their squad car. Officer Jez asked Walker if he could ride with him. The patrolman agreed, and Jez climbed into Walker’s squad car - the newsman riding shotgun. The three started eastbound on Tenth, then south on Denver.

Just as Patrolman C.T. Walker completed the turn something caught his eye.
"I saw a white male running east across the lawn of the library," Walker told authorities. "I was still about three-fourths of a block from Jefferson, and he was even south of Jefferson - over a block from me. I put out a broadcast on the air that there was a person fitting the description running in the front of the library."


C.T. Walker: 223.

Dispatcher: Go ahead, 223.

Walker: 223 -

Dispatcher: Go ahead.

Walker: - He’s in the library, Jefferson - ah - East 500 block.

(garbled transmission)

Dispatcher: 87.

Walker: 223.

Dispatcher: What’s the location 223?

Walker: Marsalis and Jefferson, in the library, I’m going around the back, get some on the front.

Dispatcher: Any unit near Marsalis and Jefferson, Code 3 (emergency).

Walker: Get ‘em here fast! (sound of tires screeching to a halt)

Dispatcher: Any unit near Marsalis and Jefferson at - at the library.


Pandemonium broke loose in Oak Cliff. Patrolman M.N. "Nick" McDonald, Captain W.R. Westbrook, and a group of officers about to check the Abundant Life Temple, scrambled for their cars. Sergeant C.B. Owens and a bevy of officers covering the vacant houses on Jefferson jumped in their squads and sped the few blocks to the library. Officer Thomas A. Hutson was sitting in a squad car at the gas station at Tenth and Beckley, when the call came out.
"Officers Hawkins and Baggett were inside using the phone," Hutson recalled, "when I heard the dispatcher say the suspect was seen running across the lawn at the Oak Cliff Branch Library at Marsalis and Jefferson. I reached over and blew the siren on the squad car to attract the officers’ attention, and they came running out of the service station and jumped in the car, and I told them to report to the library."
Within a minute and a half, nearly every police vehicle in the area had surrounded the library, believing they had Tippit’s murderer trapped.


Three-quarters of a mile west of the Jefferson Branch Library, 22-year-old Johnny C. Brewer was working as the manager at Hardy’s Shoe Store, located at 213 W. Jefferson. Brewer was listening to the radio reports about the shots fired at President Kennedy. A short time later, he heard a bulletin about the shooting of a Dallas Police Officer in Oak Cliff - just six blocks from his store.
At about 1:36 p.m., while Johnny Brewer was standing at the front of the store behind the hosiery counter, he heard sirens approaching from the east.
"I heard a siren coming down East Jefferson headed toward West Jefferson," Brewer told investigators. "Just then, a man stepped into the foyer - the lobby there in front of the store. The front doors to the store are recessed about 15 feet from the sidewalk and there are show windows on each side. He stepped into that area with his back to the street. His hair was sort of messed up and looked like he had been running, and he looked scared, and he looked funny. He had a brown sports shirt on and his shirt tail was out. Just after he stepped into the foyer there, the police car made a U-turn and went back east down Jefferson - they turned around right at Zangs and Jefferson - just a short distance from the store. The man looked over his right shoulder toward the street, as the police car headed away - you could still hear the sirens. Then he stepped back on the sidewalk and walked west on Jefferson toward the Texas Theater."
About thirty seconds after the man left the recessed lobby at Hardy’s Shoe Store, Brewer - who had resumed his duties - apparently heard another siren approaching. This time, the police car didn’t make a U-turn, but instead sped past the shoe store, heading west on Jefferson avenue. Intrigued, the young shoe store manager stepped out onto the sidewalk and looked up the street to see what was going on. By the time Brewer had scurried the twenty feet to the sidewalk, the man had walked nearly fifty yards further west on Jefferson, and was now in front of Thomsen’s Furniture Store, next door to the Texas Theater.
Julia E. Postal, the Texas Theater ticket-taker, was inside the box office listening to reports on the condition of President Kennedy at Parkland Hospital.
"The police, with their sirens on, were racing back and forth on Jefferson," Postal told the Warren Commission. "My employer, Mr. John Callahan, was in the box with me and we made the remark, ‘Something is about to bust’ or ‘pop’ or something to that effect, so it was just about - some sirens were going west, a police patrol car had just gone by on Jefferson headed in a westerly direction, with its siren on full blast. I was looking up, when the car passed, as you know, they make a tremendous noise - and my boss went to get in his car. He was parked in front, and he went to go up and see where they were going. I stepped out of the box office and went to the front and was facing west. I was right at the box office facing west, because I thought the police were stopping up quite a ways."
Postal later told authorities that she remembered seeing a man out of the corner of her eye, approaching the theater from the east as she stepped out of the box office.
Shoe store manager Johnny Brewer was standing about sixty yards behind Postal, looking west, as she was, toward the Dallas police car stopping up the street. Brewer could see the man he had observed earlier almost at the theater entrance, walking between himself and Postal.
"He was walking a little faster than usual," Brewer recalled. Brewer then saw the man duck into the Texas Theater, behind ticket-taker Postal’s back.
The man’s suspicious behavior in the shoe store lobby, his hurried walk, and his slip into the theater - all in the presence of police - began to add up to the young shoe clerk. Brewer walked up the street to talk to the ticket-taker, who was standing out front.
"Well, just as I turned around then, Johnny Brewer was standing there," Julia Postal told investigators, "and as I started back in the box office, Johnny asked me if I sold that man a ticket. I asked him what man, and he said the man that just ducked in the theater. I said, ‘No, by golly, he didn’t,’ and turned around expecting to see him. Mr. Brewer said he had been ducking in at his place of business and he had gone by me, because I was facing west."
"I told Mrs. Postal that I was going to go inside and ask the usher if he had seen him," Johnny Brewer recalled. "So, I walked in and Warren ‘Butch’ Burroughs was behind the counter. He operated the concession and takes tickets. He was behind the concession stand and I asked him if he had seen a man in a brown shirt of that description, matching that description, and he said he had been working behind the counter and hadn’t seen anybody."
Brewer turned and stepped back into the sunlight in front of the theater. He told Julia Postal that Burroughs hadn’t seen him come in.
"I told Johnny that he had to be in there," Postal remembered. "I knew he didn’t go by me, because I was facing west, and Johnny, he had come up from the east which meant he didn’t go back that way - the man had come from east going west. I told Johnny to go in and prop the center door open so I could see the concession stand. I told him to get Warren Burroughs, the usher, and have him help check the exit doors and the lounges because I knew he was in there. He just had to be. I told Johnny not to tell Warren Burroughs - because he is an excitable person, and just have him, you know, go with him and examine the exits and check real good."
Johnny Brewer stepped back into the theater and approached Warren Burroughs.
"I asked him if he would come with me and show me where the exits were and we would check the exits," Brewer told the Warren Commission, "and he asked me why. I told him I thought the guy looked suspicious."


Eight blocks east, the Dallas Police had another suspicious man cornered in the Jefferson Branch Library. Nearly the entire police force in Oak Cliff was moving in and surrounding the building. Inside the library, unaware of the commotion he had caused, Adrian Hamby approached the head librarian, Mrs. Bessie Munday, and told her what had happened.
"We locked the doors and told all the patrons inside that they would have to stay with us for a while until the police had secured the area," Hamby recalled in a 1997 interview. "We went on down into the basement, which was the children’s area. We had a staff room down there and a radio. And there was two or three people down there listening on the radio about what had happened."
Officer Charles T. Walker, who had alerted fellow officers to the library suspect, led a platoon of officers to the west side of the building. They spotted a side entrance to the library basement. The officers drew their weapons in anticipation of checking it out. Just inside the door, young Adrian Hamby was getting curious.
"I had gone to the basement door, which was about three steps below ground level, to look out the door," Hamby said. "And when I did, there was about twenty or thirty police officers out there with rifles, pistols - you name it - and they were pointing it at me and told me to come out with my hands up. And I got scared and closed the door."
Hamby’s nervous reaction sent the police into a frenzy. Now, they were certain they had the killer cornered. The next thing Hamby heard was the sound of an officer’s voice barking orders over a megaphone.
"They told me if I didn’t come out they would open fire," Hamby explained. "You talk about being scared. I thought I was doomed."
The side entrance opened and the patrons began filing out, hands high in the air. Officer Walker spotted the young man he had seen run across the lawn and the officers moved in.
"They immediately grabbed me and pushed me up against the wall - my legs spread apart - and frisked me," Hamby recalled. "I was so scared."
It looked like the manhunt was finally over. Sergeant C.B. Owens reached for his radio.


C.B. Owens: 19.

Dispatcher: 19.

Owens: Tell 223 to get off the air, we’ve already got him.

Dispatcher: 10-4. 2 (Chief Charles Batchelor), for information - also 1 (Chief Jesse Curry), the suspect in the shooting of the officer has been apprehended.


Meanwhile, at Tenth and Patton, Patrolman Howell W. Summers was getting a detailed description of the killer and his gun from used car manager Ted Callaway. The Marine Corps veteran believed that the gunman was armed with an automatic pistol, based on the way he handled the weapon. Summers notified the dispatcher.


H.W. Summers: 221.

Dispatcher: 221.

Summers: Might can give you some additional information, I got an eyeball witness to the getaway man that - ah - suspect in this shooting. He’s a white male, 27, 5 feet 11, 165, black wavy hair, fair complected, wearing a light gray Eisenhower-type jacket, dark trousers and a white shirt. And - ah - about - last seen - ah - running on the north side of the street from - ah - Patton, on Jefferson, on East Jefferson. And he was apparently armed with a 32 dark finish automatic - ah - pistol, which he had in his right hand.

Dispatcher: 10-4. For your information 221 (Summers), they have the sus - the suspect cornered in the library at Marsalis and Jefferson.

Summers: 10-4. This man can positively identify him if - they need him.

Dispatcher: Well, they do have the suspect under arrest now.

C.B. Owens: 221 (Summers), hang on to your witness.


At the library’s west entrance, police bombarded Hamby with questions, demanding to know what he was doing in there.
"I just came apart and I started crying and screaming, ‘I work here! I work here! I don’t understand! I work here!’ " Hamby remembered.
Detective Marvin A. Buhk, one of the many officers who had responded to the call for help at the library, recalled a "Secret Service man" straightening out the mess Hamby found himself in. In a later report, Detective Buhk wrote, "One of the Secret Service men stated the person who came out of the basement with the others was not the suspect and that he had already talked to him a few minutes previously."
A disappointed Sergeant Owens contacted the dispatcher.


C.B. Owens: 19.

Dispatcher: 19.

Owens: It was the wrong man.

Dispatcher: 10-4. Disregard all the information on the suspect arrested. It was the wrong man.

221.

H.W. Summers: Yes.

Dispatcher: Stand-by. 19. 19.

Owens: 19.

Dispatcher: 221 (Summers) has the eyewitness to the shooting. You want him to hold on to him?

Owens: What you say?

Dispatcher: You want him to - keep all the - eyewitness at the scene?

Owens: Yes.

Dispatcher: 10-4.


Patrolman Howell W. Summers stood near Tippit’s squad car with two witnesses to the shooting - Helen Markham and used car salesman Ted Callaway.


H.W. Summers: I’m in front of - ah - 404 - ah - West - ah - East Tenth, right now. I have two witnesses. I got one that talked to the officer and - ah - one that - ah - observed the man.


Markham’s comment about talking with the dead officer is one critics have used to show the waitress’ unreliability. In a December 2, 1963 Secret Service report, Markham described how she ran to Tippit’s side and he "...tried to tell me something, however, I could not understand what he was saying." Markham repeated the same story to the FBI and the Warren Commission. Detractors point out that the medical evidence clearly shows that Tippit was killed instantly by a shot to the brain and couldn’t possibly have spoken to Markham. Still, Markham’s story has a basis in fact. In 1977, Markham explained to the House Select Committee that Tippit "tried to speak to her but just managed gurgling noises." In the shock of the moment, Markham saw the officer’s death throes as a last attempt to speak.

At the Oak Cliff Library, Captain of Personnel W.R. "Pinky" Westbrook picked up the police radio and contacted the dispatcher.


W.R. Westbrook: 550.

Dispatcher: 550.

Westbrook: What officer have you got commanding this area over here where this officer was shot?


The dispatcher told Westbrook that Sergeant Owens was in charge. Westbrook addressed Owens over the radio and asked for his location.


C.B. Owens: I’m at Marsalis and Jefferson (Oak Cliff Library) right now.

Westbrook: There’s nothing to this Marsalis, here. Let’s get back up to - ah - the place (interrupted) and work - ah - to north Jefferson. We got a witness that seen him going north (interrupted) after he shed his jacket. And check from that vicinity towards Tyler.


Several squads were immediately dispatched from the Oak Cliff Library towards Tyler and Jefferson, an area west of the Texas Theater.


Meanwhile, Sergeant Gerald Hill drove Officer Poe’s squad car back to Tenth and Patton. As Hill returned the car keys, Poe showed him a cigarette package containing two spent shells given him by eyewitness Domingo Benavides. Hill told Poe to turn the shells over to men from the Crime Lab when they arrived.
Before leaving the scene of Tippit’s death, Sergeant Hill walked over to a nearby police radio.


G. L. Hill: 550, car 2.

Dispatcher: Go ahead, car 2.

Hill: The shells at the scene indicate that the suspect is armed with a automatic 38, rather than a pistol.

Dispatcher: 10-4.


Sergeant Hill turned and strolled west on Tenth Street toward the Abundant Life Temple at Crawford.


1:42 P.M. - Thirty minutes had passed since J.D. Tippit was gunned down. Frustration settled on the police investigators. Sergeant C.B. Owens turned his squad car toward Tenth and Patton.


Dispatcher: 19.

C.B. Owens: 19.

Dispatcher: Are you en route to 404 East Tenth where 221 (H.W. Summers) has the eyewitness?

Owens: Yes.

Dispatcher: 10-4.


Sergeant "Bud" Owens swung around to where Tippit’s cruiser was parked. Captain C.E. Talbert and a cluster of policemen were gathering around an unmarked squad car parked just behind Tippit’s abandoned vehicle. Grim faced, Owens approached. The trail was growing cold and he knew it....

[Excerpted from, Chapter 6: Closing In, With Malice: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Murder of Officer J.D. Tippit by Dale K. Myers, © 1998 DKM, All Rights Reserved. This excerpt is made available for the purpose of evaluating the book, and may not be reposted or reprinted without expressed written permission from Oak Cliff Press, Inc.]