Captain Jones. Well, that went on for almost 2 hours or somewhere near that and then at approximately 11 o'clock is when Chief Stevenson came to me, and I don't know whether he came in from one of the offices. I was in the big lobby out front of the chief's office, but I came to the double doors where the secretaries have their desks, and he came to me and told me to go down to the basement of the city hall, go up the Commerce Street ramp and place two officers there to assist an armored truck that was en route to be used in the transfer of Oswald. Have those two officers there assist that truck in backing down into the basement as far as possible. "I don't know whether it will go all the way or not," also to take any available detectives on the third floor to the basement and place them where I thought they might be needed.
Mr. Hubert. Did you follow those instructions?
Captain Jones. I did.
Mr. Hubert. Can you tell us in what way you did so?
Captain Jones. All right, sir. I went to the automobile theft bureau, juvenile bureau, my own forgery bureau and—burglary and theft bureau, and got any detectives available to have them report to me at the jail office, and it seems to me, as I say, as if two or three detectives went with me. I couldn't tell you how many it was in the elevator going down with me, but—nor who they were, but I do know that when we got to the jail office I then asked them to remain in one place and I went out the door on the ramp, or on the driveway and up the ramp to Commerce Street, called Patrolman Jez and another officer, uniformed policeman, then. Relayed Chief Stevenson's instructions not to leave there that the truck was en route.
In coming back down the ramp I encountered Captain Talbert, who is in charge of the patrol division, and because Chief Stevenson had sent me down there to do that, I informed him of the instructions I had so that he wouldn't inadvertently move them, and then I returned to the officers in the basement—jail office, and just standing outside there. And from here on in—many times—I can tell you most of the things that happened. I am sure I may be a little unsure of the time, or sequence of things, for there in a matter of a few minutes quite a lot of things were done, but I returned into there and told the officers to remain there, that——
Mr. Hubert. When you say that you returned——
Captain Jones. To the jail office on the basement floor. Now, who they were, I don't know. I am sure some of it is mentioned in the individual officers' reports that we have, of the ones that were there that I was talking to and told them as far as I knew the armored car was going, that was going to transfer him, that was backed up, it was backed up there and we would see the prisoner was safely escorted over to that. Meantime, someone, I couldn't tell——
Mr. Hubert. Just 1 minute. Before that, had you been told by Chief Stevenson when he instructed you to go down to the Commerce Street ramp and make arrangements for the handling of the armored truck——
Captain Jones. Yes.