Oswald was brought into the room shortly after midnight.[C5-87] Curry had instructed policemen not to permit newsmen to touch Oswald or get close to him, but no steps were taken to shield Oswald from the crowd.[C5-88] Captain Fritz had asked that Oswald be placed on the platform used for lineups so that he could be more easily removed “if anything happened.”[C5-89] Chief Curry, however, insisted that Oswald stand on the floor in front of the stage, where he was also in front of the one-way nylon-cloth screen customarily used to prevent a suspect from seeing those present in the room. This was done because cameramen had told Curry that their cameras would not photograph well through the screen.[C5-90]
Curry had instructed the reporters that they were not to “ask any questions and try to interview * * * [Oswald] in any way,” but when he was brought into the room, “immediately they began to shoot questions at him and shove microphones into his face.”[C5-91] It was difficult to hear Oswald’s answers above the uproar. Cameramen stood on the tables to take pictures and others pushed forward to get close-ups. (See Commission Exhibit No. 2965, [p. 207].) The noise and confusion mounted as reporters shouted at each other to get out of the way and camermen made frantic efforts to get into position for pictures.[C5-92] After Oswald had been in the room only a few minutes, Chief Curry intervened and directed that Oswald be taken back to the jail because, he testified, the newsmen “tried to overrun him.”[C5-93]
THE ABORTIVE TRANSFER
In Dallas, after a person is charged with a felony, the county sheriff ordinarily takes custody of the prisoner and assumes responsibility for his safekeeping. Normally, the Dallas Police Department notifies the sheriff when a prisoner has been charged with a felony and the sheriff dispatches his deputies to transport the accused to the county jail. This is usually done within a few hours after the complaint has been filed. In cases of unusual importance, however, the Dallas city police sometimes transport the prisoners to the county jail.[C5-94]
The decision to move Oswald to the county jail on Sunday morning was reached by Chief Curry the preceding evening. Sometime after 7:30 Saturday evening, according to Assistant Chief Batchelor, two reporters told him that they wanted to go out to dinner but that “they didn’t want to miss anything if we were going to move the prisoner.” Curry came upon them at that point and told the two newsmen that if they returned by 10 o’clock in the morning, they wouldn’t “miss anything.”[C5-95] A little later, after checking with Captain Fritz, Curry made a similar announcement to the assembled reporters. Curry reported the making of his decision to move Oswald as follows:
Then, I talked to Fritz about when he thought he would transfer the prisoner, and he didn’t think it was a good idea to transfer him at night because of the fact you couldn’t see, and if anybody tried to cause them any trouble, they needed to see who they were and where it was coming from and so forth, and he suggested that we wait until daylight, so this was normal procedure, I mean, for Fritz to determine when he is going to transfer his prisoners, so I told him “Okay.” I asked him, I said, “What time do you think you will be ready tomorrow?” And he didn’t know exactly and I said, “Do you think about 10 o’clock,” and he said, “I believe so,” and then is when I went out and told the newspaper people * * * “I believe if you are back here by 10 o’clock you will be back in time to observe anything you care to observe.”[C5-96]
During the night, between 2:30 and 3 a.m., the local office of the FBI and the sheriff’s office received telephone calls from an unidentified man who warned that a committee had decided “to kill the man that killed the President.”[C5-97] Shortly after, an FBI agent notified the Dallas police of the anonymous threat. The police department and ultimately Chief Curry were informed of both threats.[C5-98]
Immediately after his arrival at the building on Sunday morning between 8:30 and 8:45 a.m., Curry spoke by telephone with Sheriff J. E. Decker about the transfer. When Decker indicated that he would leave to Curry the decision on whether the sheriff’s office or the police would move Oswald, Curry decided that the police would handle it because “we had so much involved here, we were the ones that were investigating the case and we had the officers set up downstairs to handle it.”[C5-99]
After talking with Decker, Curry began to discuss plans for the transfer. With the threats against Oswald in mind, Curry suggested to Batchelor and Deputy Chief Stevenson that Oswald be transported to the county jail in an armored truck, to which they agreed. While Batchelor made arrangements to have an armored truck brought to the building, Curry and Stevenson tentatively agreed on the route the armored truck would follow from the building to the county jail.[C5-100]
Curry decided that Oswald would leave the building via the basement. He stated later that he reached this decision shortly after his arrival at the police building Sunday morning, when members of the press had already begun to gather in the basement. There is no evidence that anyone opposed this decision.[C5-101] Two members of the Dallas police did suggest to Captain Fritz that Oswald be taken from the building by another exit, leaving the press “waiting in the basement and on Commerce Street, and we could be to the county jail before anyone knew what was taking place.”[C5-102] However, Fritz said that he did not think Curry would agree to such a plan because he had promised that Oswald would be transferred at a time when newsmen could take pictures.[C5-103] Forrest Sorrels also suggested to Fritz that Oswald be moved at an unannounced time when no one was around, but Fritz again responded that Curry “wanted to go along with the press and not try to put anything over on them.”[C5-104]