Mr. Potts. When I was walking across the street there, I parked my car over at the Scottish Rite parking lot there and it's the Masonic lot and when I come across the street there at Commerce and Harwood this officer on the corner there said, "Did you hear about Tippit getting killed?" I said, "No; I didn't hear about that." He said, "Yes; I understand he got killed on a disturbance call over in Oak Cliff." That's the first I had heard about Tippit and when I got to the office, I walked in and Baker told me, "We have some people here from the Texas School Book Depository—there are four or five of them back there," and he said, "Would you go back there and take some affidavits from them?" And I said, "Sure," and I went back there and took one from this Arce, and I was in the process of taking one from this Jack Dougherty when I heard some officers coming in the door there, and I heard one of them say, "We've got the man that killed Tippit."
So, they brought him on back in while we were sitting back in the squadroom and I was sitting back there with Dougherty and Arce, and they came by and put him in the side interrogation room back there. As you walk in the door, there is an interrogation room right straight ahead and then you turn right to go back in the squadroom and you go on back in the squadroom, and this Mr. Dougherty looked at me and he said, "I know that man."
He said, "He works down there in that building—the Texas School Book Depository Building." He said, "I don't know his name, but I know him." So did Arce—he said, "Yes, he works down there."
So, I went ahead and took those affidavits from them—from those people and we got them notarized.
Mr. Ball. You mean Arce and Dougherty?
Mr. Potts. Arce and Dougherty. There were some more officers back there taking affidavits from some of the others—some of those other people—I don't know—you know, time and all the confusion around there, you don't exactly know what time, but my partner, Bill Senkel, and F. M. Turner—we work a three-man squad, and Bill came around and he talked to Captain Fritz, and he said "Come on, let's go. We are going out to 1026 North Beckley."
He came around and told me, he said—he asked me if I had finished taking the affidavits, and I told him, "Yes," and he said, "Captain Fritz wants you and I to go out to Oswald's or Hidell's or Oswald's room."
On his person—he must have had—he did have identification with the name Alex Hidell and Oswald—Lee Harvey Oswald, but Lt. E. L. Cunningham of the forgery bureau, who used to be a member of the homicide and robbery bureau before he made lieutenant, he went with us and we went out there.
Mr. Ball. Before you went out there, did you get a search warrant?
Mr. Potts. No; we didn't—we didn't get a search warrant at that time. We went to the location and talked to the people there.