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

As I said in the last post, it takes maturity and discipline to do this analysis. You need to be mature to recognize that there is often conflicting evidence. And there is also a hierarchy to the evidence. So, you can't hone-in on something that you like, such as that guy did in citing statements that Jack Ruby made which indicated that he shot Oswald, and consider it mission accomplished; be sure to turn out the lights. No, you have to look at the entire body of evidence. You have to determine what the preponderance of the evidence points to. And you have to know what trumps what. 

And you have to do all that without any bias. You can't start with the conclusion that you desire to be true and then work back from it to find evidence which you can cite to support it.  That is intellectually dishonest. And yet, people do it all the time.

So, how does it work in this case, to determine who the Garage Shooter of Lee Harvey Oswald was? Well, it starts with closely examining the images of the Garage Shooter and seeing if he is a good match to Jack Ruby. And that is at the top of the evidence hierarchy.  And not because I say so, but because objective reality says so. If the Garage Shooter was Jack Ruby, then his images should match those of Jack Ruby- extremely well. That is such a simple and obvious statement, it almost seems superfluous to say it. But, it needs to be said because there are so many people who seem to be oblivious to it. 

The reason comparing images is so important is because it is the closest we are ever going to get to seeing with our own eyes- and devoid of third party risk- who it was.  If the day ever comes (and it never will) that a time machine is invented by which we can go back and time and watch the event directly, that will beat looking at images. But, since that day is never going to come, looking at photographic and film images is the best we are ever going to do.

So, that is at the top of the hierarchy. What is at the bottom? Witness testimonies are at the bottom. Unfortunately, that is true. You have heard of the Innocence Project, which has gotten many wrongly condemned convicts freed by way of DNA evidence. But, how do you think they got convicted in the first place? Usually, it was by eye-witness testimonies- that were wrong. Dead wrong.

And worse yet are hearsay testimonies. Oh my God. I am reminded of the joke that you could have 10 people lined up in a row and have the first person tell a narrative to the second person. Then, he whispers it to the next person, and so on and so forth. And the joke is that the narrative that comes out of the mouth of the last person is woefully different from what the first person said.  There is a reason why hearsay cannot be admitted as evidence in a court of law. And that actually happened at the mock trial. Attorney Bill Simpich decided to go with the 1978 Carolyn Arnold story about seeing Oswald eating in the 2nd floor lunch room at 12:25, except it was just hearsay. Carolyn Arnold never testified to that effect. She was never sworn-in to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. It was just a hearsay article in the newspaper. Yet, Simpich claimed it at trial, and it was not contested by the judge or the prosecutors. The mock trial made a mockery of trials. 

Witness statements are, by definition, subjective, and objective evidence is always to be preferred. 

But, there may be objective conclusions that can be drawn about testimonies. For instance, it is a fact that only Dallas Police claimed to recognize Ruby in the garage. No reporter or cameraman claimed to recognize Ruby- at the time.  Some later claimed to have recognized him, but that's not what I am talking about. What I am talking about is a reporter or cameraman citing the name Jack Ruby before it was told to them by Dallas Police. There is not a one who did that; not even Hugh Aynesworth who knew Jack Ruby well and spent time with him that weekend. Hugh claimed to see the shooter "zip on in" but he didn't know he was Jack Ruby until the police announced it.

And, that no one except certain Dallas Police claimed to recognize Ruby in the garage is an objective fact. And that Dallas Police removed the shooter from the garage without first handcuffing him is also an objective fact, and it is inexplicable and inexcusable in the conduct of police work. How come 3 detectives got the bright idea, simultaneously, to handcuff the shooter as soon as they got through the jail office door? If they could think of it on that side of the door, why couldn't they think of it on the other side of the door?
There is really no excuse for this, and it screams out loud that there is something terribly wrong with the story.

Then, there is the complete lack of any motive for Ruby to shoot Oswald. And remember that the official one was invented by Ruby's lawyer, and even though Ruby came to spout it himself some, the fact is that at the time, he had no reason for shooting Oswald and no awareness that he did. 

It's pretty widely accepted that Ruby shooting Oswald was a spur of the moment thing, an impulse. That is, except by the buffs. According to the buffs, Ruby shot Oswald because the Mafia ordered him to, and they threatened to hurt or kill his family if he didn't. And that is a ridiculous position to take. Would you? If the Mafia ordered you to kill somebody or else they were going to hurt or kill your family, would you do the killing. 

Let's look at it realistically. Other than in the Godfather and other Mafia movies, has that ever happened? Do you know of any instances in which someone committed a murder because the Mafia told him that if he didn't, then his loved ones would die? 

What would you do in that situation? And I realize that it's purely hypothetical because you are never going to be in that situation. But, I presume you would seek to protect your family by moving them, by hiring private detectives to guard them, by informing the police of the threat, by keeping them armed, by staying with them and keeping yourself armed and vigilant. But, though you love your family, you are not going to kill anybody. And nobody would, and that includes Jack Ruby. 

So really, that is just a stupid idea by people who have watched one too many Mafia movies. It's childish. It's fanciful. And it is completely steeped in drama and theater but not in real life.

And the same thing goes for all the stories of Jack Ruby being a violent man. There isn't a stitch of evidence to back these claims. And EVERYTHING we see of him in films and footage and photographs support that he was not the least bit violent. The fact is that Jack Ruby was a very devout Jew.  He spent two hours on Friday evening at the Synagogue talking to his rabbi. He took his religion very seriously. 

When you look at the strong, compelling photographic evidence that the Garage Shooter was NOT Ruby, at the strange behavior of police who obviously did not want the shooter to be seen, when you look at Ruby's behavior- who sends a $25 money order right before killing someone? The two acts were next to each other, but they don't fit. They don't segue.

The preponderance of evidence is overwhelming that Jack Ruby did not shoot Lee Harvey Oswald. And to cite statements by Ruby which suggest otherwise, as if those statements are a trump card that trumps everything else, is just plain wrong, woefully wrong. And it is extremely immature not to recognize how paltry it is.