Mr. Hubert. What I had in mind was, whether your concern was that the position and closeness and mass of the news media there presented a threat insofar as single-man action was concerned?
Captain Fritz. We didn’t know many of those people. We knew very few. We knew the local people. Many people were there from foreign countries, and some of them looked unkempt. We didn’t know anything about who they were.
For that reason, we wouldn’t want them up there with us at all if we could avoid it, plus the fact that the camera lights were blinding, and if you couldn’t see where you were going or what you were doing, anything could happen.
We didn’t think we would have lights in our eyes, but we were blinded by lights. Just about the time we left the jail office, the lights came on, and were blinding.
We got along all right with the press here in Dallas. They do what we ask. These people didn’t act that way. These people were excited and acted more like a mob.
Mr. Hubert. Did you indicate to any other officer or the chief that there were some people there that you didn’t know who were unkempt and that you were concerned about who they were?
Captain Fritz. We talked about it among ourselves; the officers. We didn’t have much time for talking. Those were busy times.
We gathered all the evidence the first afternoon and the next day, and we had ample evidence to try that man the next morning if it had been necessary to try him, so the officers were busy and we were all busy, and we didn’t have time for that crowd or time to make a good appraisal of them.
But I am just giving you a rough idea of how they looked. They didn’t look like our local people.
Mr. Hubert. Did you convey that information to any superior officer of yours?