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

This is the Beers photo, taken a split-second before the Jackson photo. It's the closest thing in time to the Jackson photo. So, where is Leavelle's hand in this photo and what is it doing?

Oswald is clasping his hands left over right. 

Does that look like Leavelle has got his hand, four fingers of it, stuffed inside Oswald's pants? And is that something that an officer would do? I have been listening to countless interviews of Leavelle talking about it, and I don't see that he has ever said that he did that. 

Here is one such example of Leavelle talking about it. He says nothing about putting his hand in Oswald's pants. However, he says that he put a set of handcuffs from Oswald's two wrists together, and then he put a handcuff from Oswald's right wrist to his (Leavelle's) left wrist. The clear implication is that there were three handcuffs involved.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLqXmZbn79A 

Here is a 48 minute interview of Jim Leavelle by Gary Mack. 

Gary asked him how he knew that Oswald had shot Tippit, and Leavelle cited the witnesses who saw Oswald do it, without naming them. But, the fact is that the Tippit witnesses were all over the place in their description of the shooter, and one even said that there were two culprits. The idea that that Tippit witnesses prove that Oswald did it is ridiculous. 

Leavelle did, at least, admit that Oswald denied shooting Kennedy or Tippit.  Then, Leavelle mentioned the shells that Oswald supposedly emptied from his gun and left at the Tippit crime scene, but why would Oswald or anyone do that? Then, Leavelle gave an account of the Oswald/Tippit encounter. He assumed that Tippit assumed that Oswald might be the man they were looking for. So, he pulled over, and he called Oswald over, and they talked. And the result of that talk was that Tippit had further suspicions, so he got out of the car and started walking around to where Oswald was.
And that's when Oswald shot him. 

But, at that point, if Tippit has heightened suspicions that Oswald was the killer, wouldn't he have drawn his own gun? I should think that the moment he realized this was a serious suspect that he would have ordered Oswald to step back and turn around. And then, as he got out of the car, he would immediately draw his weapon. 

Seriously, if from talking to him, Tippit wasn't satisfied that he was harmless, don't you think, at that point, that he would assume the worst and act with extreme caution?       

But getting back to the transfer, Leavelle said again that there were three cuffs involved. 

Then, Leavelle said something that just flat out is not observed in any of the tapes: he claims to have seen Ruby with the gun "out of the corner of my eye as we came down." And, he said he knew exactly what was going to happen. But, in that case, why didn't he STOP? I should think that he would stop cold- freeze- as soon as realized it. Why keep walking? Then, he said he jerked his arm to pull Oswald behind him, to protect him. 

He didn't say anything about having his hand tucked in Oswald's pants. In fact, wouldn't he have to remove his hand from Oswald's pants before he could jerk him back?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R99EvAveiuU 


Now, here's a really good one in which Leavelle really describes the whole thing. He says nothing about having his hand inside Oswald's pants. What he says is: "I had him right against me, as you can see the picture indicates." 

Having Oswald right against him is not the same as having his hand in his pants. 

And look, folks: the claim that Leavelle jerked Oswald out of the way before Ruby shot him is a flat-out lie. The pictures tell us so. 

So, there's Leavelle, Oswald, and Ruby. It's the last second, and Leavelle has not jerked Oswald. 

So, that progresses it. Ruby is about to pull the trigger. Leavelle hasn't done anything to help Oswald. 

Now, Oswald has been shot. You see how he has started lurching forward? That continues. He's starting to go down. 

Oswald is going down now. He's bending over. He was never jerked out of the way by Leavelle.

Finally, we see a reaction from Leavelle: he looks at Ruby. But, Oswald is already shot, and Leavelle hadn't jerked him anywhere.

Oswald is going down. He's definitely been shot. And Leavelle did nothing. 

Then, Ruby gets in front of Oswald and Leavelle steps up to him, but Oswald can't go with him; he is incapacitated. So, the result was this:

There is no indication that Leavelle jerked on Oswald. He never tried to move Oswald anywhere. Oswald wound up where he was because he was immobilized; he was going down. Leavelle moved forward towards Ruby, but Oswald couldn't go with him. That's what produced the arrangement above, not anything that Leavelle did.

Here's the link. Leavelle flat-out lied when he said he jerked Oswald behind him, trying to save him; it never happened.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iobrl1M0fu4

And he never said anything about having his hand stuffed in Oswald's pants.