Mr. Owens. No; they were his city issued—his own gun.
Mr. Ely. And do you recall whom you gave them to eventually?
Mr. Owens. No; I believe it was Barton—I'm not sure. I couldn't say positively who I gave them to, to go put them in the property room. In fact, I don't even know whether I gave them to anybody. I might have taken them out to the Oak Cliff substation and put them in our property room—I don't know.
Mr. Ely. Now, you were back at the stage where somebody had given you the gun, and let's go on from there.
Mr. Owens. Yes—we were informed by a man whom I do not know, that the suspect that shot Officer Tippit had run across a vacant lot toward Jefferson, and thrown down his jacket, I think he said, white, I'm not sure. Not finding anybody that had seen him come out of that area, we blocked off that square block.
Mr. Ely. Can you tell us specifically what block you blocked off?
Mr. Owens. I believe it was the 400 block of East Jefferson—the 400 or 500 block. It was this block bound by Jefferson, 10th, Patton, and Denver—I believe that was the area. Then we started searching the buildings and houses—there are some old two-story houses there used as businesses.
Mr. Ely. What was the nature of your search of these buildings? Did you just look through the halls?
Mr. Owens. Well, I didn't go in. I was standing on the outside and the other officers were going in. I was covering off. Then, we heard over the radio that some officer, who by the number, I took to be a three-wheeler motorcycle officer had seen someone answering the description, go into the basement of the library, which is on the corner of Marsalis and Jefferson, which was about two blocks away. Quite a few of us left that area we were at and proceeded to the library, covered it off, and they brought out the one that they thought was the suspect, but he fit the general description, but he was not the one we were looking for. He was an employee of the library that heard the President had gotten shot and he had been to lunch and he was running over there to tell them that the President got shot.
Mr. Ely. In other words, someone saw this employee run into the library, and that's the reason you came in. He had just run into the library?