Mr. Pierce. Part of the day. I went to Ennis, Tex., early that morning and returned to Dallas about—oh, it was approximately 1 or 1:30 p.m.
Mr. Ely. Did you have anything to do with the investigation of the killing of either President Kennedy or Officer Tippit?
Mr. Pierce. No, sir.
Mr. Ely. I will show you three exhibits, one is a map designated Putnam Exhibit No. 1. The other two are designated Sawyer Deposition Exhibits A and B, and are copies of the Dallas Police Department's radio logs for November 22, 1963.
If you will for the moment assume that Officer Tippit was assigned to patrol the district marked No. 78 on Putnam Exhibit No. 1. Can you explain why, subsequent to the shooting of the President, Officer Tippit would be in the district marked 109—specifically at the corner of Lancaster and Eighth—at 12:54 p.m., and then would later have proceeded into district 91, which is the area in which he was shot and killed?
Will you look at these radio logs to see if you can find any calls which would lead him to take this route? Use any other information at your disposal to explain to us why he would have gone out of district 78 and over into Nos. 109 and 91?
Mr. Pierce. Well, I see one transmission here that I think would have alerted any officer knowing the fact that the President was in town, at 12:43—I believe this occurred on channel 1—this was taken from channel 1 recordings at 12:43. It says, "Attention all squads of downtown area, code 3 to Elm and Houston with caution."
Mr. Ely. Explain what code 3 means.
Mr. Pierce. That's an emergency. In other words, that is, we have code 1, which is normal driving; we have code 2, and a code 3. In other words, code 3 is your top—proceed with haste and caution. The transmission followed that at 12:44, "Attention all squads, the suspect in the shooting at Elm and Houston is reported to be an unknown white male," and gives the description here—would also be an indication to the squads, and reading this—and I assume that this is the way it came out—a man would have to draw his own judgment, because it hasn't told you yet that the President has been shot, but I would think that any normal police officer would assume that there had been something pertaining to that, probably, and it would be normal procedure for him working in the district he is working in to pull into a closer area to the downtown area, and this district 109, which is, I believe you stated, that as being at Eighth and Lancaster—it doesn't show here on your map, but you have no viaduct—that's about the only place you can cross that river, unless you want to wade.
Mr. Ely. Could you mark on the exhibit with your red pencil where that viaduct would be?