Where Were You?: America Remembers the JFK Assassination (7 page)

John Brewer and Ray Hawkins

About ninety steps from the movie theater where Oswald sought refuge after killing both President Kennedy and Officer J. D. Tippit, twenty-two-year-old John Brewer was managing Hardy’s Shoe Store. Listening to reports about the assassination, he learned about Tippit’s murder just blocks away. After Oswald walked down Jefferson Boulevard and ducked into the theater, Brewer alerted police, who quickly came and arrested the assassin. On the day Kennedy came to Dallas, thirty-one-year-old Ray Hawkins, a married father of two, was one of the few patrolmen not assigned to the presidential visit. Instead he was working as a traffic accident investigator when he heard over the police radio that an officer had been shot in the Oak Cliff suburb. Each man played a key role in locating and arresting the assassin, and this is the first time the two have sat down together to recall the events of the day.

J
OHN BREWER: I had noticed this guy as he walked into the window area of our storefront, and I thought it was pretty strange that somebody would be shopping for shoes with all the commotion going on and the police cars going by. Then I said, “I know this guy from somewhere. I recognize him.” But mainly it was his actions and his trying to avoid any part of what was going on out here that caught my attention. I was listening to the radio, knowing a policeman had been shot; they’d give a description, but instantly, when he walked into the recessed area, it was like,
I’ve seen him somewhere before.
I couldn’t place where.

What led me to pursue him wasn’t so much that I’d seen him before but the way he was acting—hiding himself from all the police cars that were converging at the Tenth and Patton area. So those two things: One, I’d seen him, and the way he acted.

(photograph by Lawrence Schiller)

It took a while, but I realized that he had been a customer weeks before. I had sold him a pair of shoes, $4.70. (Our highest-price shoes, the deluxe shoes, were $7.70.) It was at night, and stores were only open one night a week, on Thursday. This was a Thursday night and, as near as I can figure, maybe six weeks before. He was a very fastidious customer, very hard to make up his mind. I just let him be and stepped away from him. In sales, the last person who speaks wins . . . or loses—so I let him try them on, and finally he said, “I’ll take them.”

On this day, when the police cars went by, I was standing just inside the door observing him, and he was looking at me—he looked me square in the eye too. He was looking through the door, and I know there was recognition because he’d seen me. When the police cars all got by and the sound was more in the distance, he turned around, looked over his shoulder, and walked out and proceeded up the street.

I just had a feeling that something was wrong with this picture—that he was suspicious—and yet
he wasn’t panicky; he wasn’t running. I’ve heard he was running—he wasn’t—he was just walking at a nice pace. But it was just a gut feeling that something was up. Why do you pretend to be shopping for shoes when all this commotion is going on?

Exterior of the Texas Theatre, where Oswald was apprehended
(photograph by Lawrence Schiller)

I didn’t connect him to the assassination, which I had heard about. I was also aware that Officer Tippit had been shot and killed just a few blocks from here, and that probably—with a description from the radio station I was listening to—led to more wonderment and
What the heck is going on here?
While I was walking, he had already entered the Texas Theatre—you could see him go in. I stood there for a second and thought,
What am I fixin’ to get into?
Why am I doing this?
But I just kept walking.

The story got out that Oswald was busted for not buying a ticket. Totally wrong. I asked Julie Postal, the cashier, if she had sold a ticket to a man matching his description. I only wanted confirmation that somebody else saw what I saw. I could have cared less if he was buying a ticket, so he wasn’t busted for that. She said, no, she hadn’t sold a ticket to anybody that matched that description; she had been out on the sidewalk watching all the commotion as well. I said, “The fella I saw went into the theater; I’m going inside.” Once I got inside, I saw Butch Burrows, who was the concessionaire. I asked him the same question. “Did you see this fella”—matching the description I gave him—“come in?” He said, no, that he’d been busy stocking his concessions. I said, “Well, he came in here, and there’s something funny about him. Let’s go look.”

Interior of the Texas Theatre
(photograph by Lawrence Schiller)

Butch went with me. We went up to the balcony, didn’t see anything, and then went back down to the theater’s lower level; didn’t see him. I went behind the curtain that leads out to the fire escape, out into the alley, and I said, “Butch, I’m going to stand here. You go up to the front, and if anybody matching this description starts to leave, stop him.” I didn’t know the guy had a .38 in his pocket.

I came back out and reported to Julie Postal that the guy was still there. She hadn’t seen him. I said, “Call the police,” so Julie made the phone call. That’s when I went back in. Butch was up front, and I was in the back; I still hadn’t seen him.

The house lights in the theater came on, and that was the first time I really spotted him inside the theater. He stood up for a second like he was going to leave and then just turned around and sat right back down within one seat or so of where he had been sitting. That was the first time I saw him in the theater, but I thought,
Gotcha!

I still had no idea what he had done, no clue. But, son, you did something. You did something. When he pulled that gun out on Officer McDonald, I
knew
he had done something.

RAY HAWKINS: John Brewer and I first met at the back door of this theater. All we had was the description that John had given whenever he talked on the phone. He said that a suspicious man dressed like the suspect had come in here. We were over at the library at that time. We first had a report that someone fitting his description had gone into the library. We found out that wasn’t true. Then they said John had called in, that there was a man in the theater who hadn’t paid to go in, so that’s about what we knew then. I knew that J. D. had been killed, so it was a very dangerous situation. I was an accident investigator at the time, and of course I was in uniform, but no bulletproof vest.

When I first came through the door, I thought John was the suspect.

BREWER: I remember opening a door and being immediately grabbed—I don’t know how many were out there, but there had to be at least half a dozen to ten or so. I had to explain quickly that there was a person in here that I was suspicious of and, basically, “I’m on your side. I’m not the bad guy.” Officer McDonald asked if he should go out here, and, just before he knocked on the door, the house lights came on. That was actually the first time I saw Oswald, even though I was sure he was in the theater. There was a curtain back by the exit, and I was looking through the curtain when the house lights came on. The movie continued to play. Oswald stood up as if he was going to leave and moved maybe one seat over but basically sat back down in the same position on the same row. Officer McDonald, myself, and another officer—I don’t know his name—walked out on the stage. I pointed to Oswald, and Oswald was just sitting there, calm as he could be.

I pointed him out from the stage, but I probably wouldn’t have been there if I’d been aware that he was armed. I had no idea—didn’t even
enter my mind. He just kind of stared, glared back. I jumped off the stage, and Officer McDonald came up the left side, as you face the audience. Another officer and I walked up the right side. Officer McDonald was tapping people on the shoulder, telling them to get up, to move, but all the while he was keeping his eye on Oswald. Just as Officer McDonald walked into the aisle, tapping him to get up, Oswald got up. He threw a hard left cross and knocked Officer McDonald back into the seat.

I’m standing maybe ten or twelve feet away. Almost in the same motion, he reaches under his shirt, which was not tucked in, and pulls out a pistol—I think it was a revolver—and puts it right in Officer McDonald’s face. Officer McDonald had recovered basically; he got back up, wrestled the gun away from him, and I’m sure I saw Oswald pull the trigger. But Officer McDonald has said that the hammer hit the fleshy part between his thumb and forefinger, preventing the gun from firing. Immediately the gun was taken away from Oswald, and then cops were coming over the backs of the chairs. They weren’t getting cheap shots in, but they were going to arrest this guy.

HAWKINS: I came up the aisle and heard Nick McDonald say, “I’ve got him.” Then at I saw that they were locked up in a fight, and I went up and got Oswald’s left hand into the handcuffs; it seemed like two or three minutes, but it wasn’t that long. It was a lot of chaos. It rained police. One of the officers even jumped down off the balcony to assist in the arrest, but we had enough police there at that time. The only thing I heard Oswald say was “I haven’t done nothing.” That’s exactly what he said. Other than that, I didn’t hear anything. There were so many police then and so much confusion, it was kind of hard to hear who was saying what.

BREWER: As they were leading him out toward the side I was standing on, he looked me straight in the face, and I heard him say, “I’m not resisting arrest.” That was kind of hard to swallow, that he wasn’t resisting after having tried to kill a policeman. At the time, I really wasn’t thinking he might’ve been the assassin of President Kennedy because of the distance from downtown to here. I felt that maybe he did have something to do with Officer Tippit’s murder, but it didn’t really dawn on me until I got home that evening,
turned on the television, and there was Oswald, down at the police station with Captain Will Fritz. I said, “Damn.”