The Tippit Case in the New Millenium

[Milo Reech]

Butler's 1977 HSCA Moriarty/Day interview report contains many dubious statements.

1. Placement of the murder scene closer to Denver than Patton.
   
2. Wrong call number (he used 602 not 601).
   
3. Declaring the squad car radio unusable because the car was not running.
   
4. Placement of the service revolver on the "hood and/or fender of the squad car."
   

He was adamant about #1, stating it twice, latter more detailed, wrong both times. Error #2 is also inexplicable. #3 sounds wrong. If the squad car radio didn't work how did Bowley make his call? #4 is curious, inconsistent with the Bowley/Callaway accounts of the same event.

The Nashes interviewed Butler in 1964.

The Dudley M. Hughes Funeral Home is the central ambulance dispatching point for southern Dallas. It either handles calls directly or calls other funeral homes in the system that cover other areas. Dudley M. Hughes Jr., the dispatcher, took the call from the police. He filled out an ambulance call slip with the code "3-19" (which means emergency shooting) and the address, "501 East 10th Street." He put the slip into the time clock and stamped it 1:18 p.m., November 22, in the space marked "Time Called." Since the location was just two short blocks away he told one of his own drivers, Clayton Butler, to respond. Butler and Eddie Kinsley ran down the steps, got into the ambulance and took off, siren screaming.

Butler radioed his arrival at the scene at 1:18 p.m., within 60 seconds of leaving the funeral home. He remembers that there were at least 10 people standing around the man lying on the ground. It was not until he and his assistant pulled back a blanket covering Tippit that they realized the victim was a policeman.

Butler ran back to his radio to inform headquarters. The radio was busy and he could not cut in. He yelled "Mayday" to no avail, and went back to Tippit. The officer lay on his side, face down with part of his body under the left front fender of the police car. Butler and Kinsley rolled him over and saw the bullet wound through Tippit's temple. Butler told us, "I thought he was dead then. It's not my position to say so. We got him into the ambulance and we got going as quick as possible. On the way to the hospital I finally let them know it was a policeman." The record shows that Butler called in to the funeral home at 1:26 p.m. to say he had reached the hospital.

Despite the fact that the ambulance was dispatched to 501 East 10th, no statement was ever taken from either of the Wrights. Mrs. Wright remembers that a man who did not identify himself came around two months after the President's assassination and talked with her for a few minutes. He took no notes, did not ask her to sign anything, did not speak to her husband and did not ask if he had seen anything unusual. Clayton Butler, the ambulance driver, says he was questioned by the Dallas police when he arrived at the hospital, but not since then.

Pretty much the same as the later HSCA version minus the detail errors. In both versions Croy is conspicuous by his absence, surely looks like he did not arrive before the ambulance left the scene.

the ambulance driver - Jasper Butler Jr - confirms this when he says "I had my partner and a large white man at the location to place the Officer's body on our ambulance stretcher." AFTERWARD is when he claims to have used the police radio and let the DPD DISPATCHER KNOW THE INJURED PARTY WAS A DALLAS POLICE OFFICER"

(Doesn't this show then that it was NOT the DPD who called the ambulance but some other party. He says earlier in his statement that they received a call "on the Police Dep't hot line" yet for some reason he feels the need to radio the DPD using Tippit's radio, to inform them the injured party is a policeman... )

I don't think Butler tried to use Tippit's radio. When he says "police radio" it may refer to a radio on board the ambulance.