Oswald in the doorway: the blog of the Oswald Innocence Campaign, by Ralph Cinque

Now, I have something big. I have been saying all along that Jack Ruby must have gotten to the garage earlier and had his fracas with the cops, after which he was taken up to the 5th floor to wait until it was time to merge him into the scene in the jail office. 

It means that the garage couldn't be filled with reporters until after the fracas with the real Ruby was done, and he was gone. 

We know from reports that the journalists were not allowed to fill the garage until shortly before before Oswald was brought down, and that means: a few minutes before. Now, I have something concrete to back that up.

It's the KRLD film. If KRLD was in the garage since, say, 10:00, then they would have had footage. As you watch the KRLD footage, it starts outside, and stays outside for a long time. When does it get into the garage? It's at the 9:50 point in the footage.

  What you are seeing there are mostly cops. There is Tom Petit in the center, but that's it. The guy on the left in the light coat may have been a reporter, but all the others are cops. I believe that's FBI Agent Pinkston on the right. That is the first scene inside the garage in the KRLD footage.

Then, at 10:04, you see a television camera being rolled in. So, they were getting set up. The spectacle is going to begin in less than 3 minutes, but they are still getting set up. 

At 10:28, here's another guy with a camera, just coming in.

At around 12 minutes, Pierce drives by. Then at 13 minutes, Fritz can be seen, so the spectacle is underway.

That's Fritz with his had turned back towards the side door, checking on the trio. So, what this means is the entire length of the KRLD pre-footage was 3 minutes and 10 seconds. We didn't see the NBC or UPI cameras rolled in, so there must have been some setting up prior to this. But, probably not that much prior to it. There is no reason to think that NBC got going long before KRLD did. KRLD was the CBS affiliate in Dallas. Dan Rather claimed to be at the KRLD headquarters at the time and in communication with them. There was a lot of competition, right? KRLD produced the longest footage and by a wide margin. There is no reason to think they got started way after NBC or anyone else. 

So, I am willing to grant a few minutes prior to this as the beginning of when journalists and photographers were allowed to start filling the garage to set up to cover this 30 foot walk and drive-off. What the heck, I'll even make it 5 minutes. That would mean it started 8 minutes and 10 seconds before the spectacle commenced, in all its pomp and circumstance. 

But, I maintain that the real Jack Ruby's fracas with Dallas cops in the garage occurred 30 minutes to 1 hour before the spectacle. And there is no reason to think that there were any journalists or photographers there then. It may have been just Dallas cops. Was Oswald even there? I don't know, but I suspect he wasn't. 

Now, if you look at other footages, forget about it. KRLD is the only one that provides this pre-game show, short as it was. All the films go straight to the action. 

Bob Jackson said that he and others were made to wait in the 3rd floor press room until it was time to go downstairs and fill the garage. And from up there, they weren't going a hear peep from Jack Ruby's fracas.    

Jack Ruby said, and others said, that he responded verbally once the fracas began. But, the Garage Shooter did not speak a word. Jack Ruby said he was pushed down to the ground in the garage. The Garage Shooter was never pushed down to the garage. 

Jack Ruby's incident occurred prior to the televised one, 30 minutes to 1 hour before.