Well, there may have been some on the street--I'm not so sure of that--but what I mean, I cleared the pert and kept them in this room where they could only see him as he came by one door and by the second door, and they were away from him a distance then. He was to be in the carport and they were 20 or 25 feet back in the building.

Mr. Hubert.

You say you had them under lock and key, but they could see out--could they see through windows?

Mr. Decker.

No; bars, they were barred doors.

Mr. Hubert.

Oh, I see.

Mr. Decker.

They were barred doors.

Mr. Hubert.

And you put all the press people out there?

Mr. Decker.

Yes, sir.

Mr. Hubert.

Did you check to see whether they were press people or not?

Mr. Decker.

All in all--I was under the impression that they were that the majority of them were press people. I don't think there was anybody in that room that wasn't.

Mr. Hubert.

I mean, did you have any system of checking ?

Mr. Decker.

No; I didn't personally check and search each one of them because they had so darn much equipment --everybody had equipment--I don't care who they were, and I had my officers mix and mingle with them and knew most of them. You see, we got pretty well acquainted with that press for 2 or 3 days there because they were continually in our hair, you see.

Mr. Hubert.

All right, sir; go ahead.

Mr. Decker.

At the outside drive, or at the entrance to my carport--I moved a couple of my men--four or five of my special men there to be sure that it was clear when the man did arrive. I had been notified by Curry that maybe they would bring him down in an armored car and I had some other rumors--they would be bringing him in a car, and about that time on those live TV cameras in that room, the flash came that shots had been fired, that there was a riot on in the basement of the city hall, and if you will pardon my French and you don't need to put this in here, young lady, "We caught lightening in the jug in that room," sir. There is no question. They tried to crawl the walls, they tried to tear down those barred doors, they tried to do everything to get out of there and it looked like I would never get them out of the damn room.

Mr. Hubert.

You mean the ones you had locked up ?

Mr. Decker.

The press--they were locked up and couldn't get out of there with all of their equipment, so as I say, "We caught lightening in the jug." There wasn't any question. Finally, I got the doors open and they tore out on Main Street and out on Houston Street and commandeered cars with cameras hanging on their backs, some of their own equipment, back up Main Street. I lost the majority of them then for a few minutes.

Mr. Hubert.

Have you been given any warning by the FBI that they had received a message, or had the message been received, I think, by your office, that some attempt would be made by a group to injure Oswald?

Mr. Decker.

That's along 12:30 or 1 o'clock in the morning--that's when that occurred. That's when I got on the telephone, you see, sir--I'm sure that you don't understand this, but, you know, but no man--it makes no difference how long he is an officer, ever imagined that he could work on an investigation the size of this one and therefore, of course, you realize that my officers and I'm sure some of the city officers, myself included, were working under just a little bit of pressure.
Anyway, this thing you are talking about came to me from my office man, Sergeant McCoy, and he had received a call from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Milt Newsom, who stated to him that this boy was going to be killed and that he had good information. He relayed that message to me at my home, and I asked him had the city been notified and he said, "Yes."

Mr. Hubert.

That was early in the morning, as I recall?

Mr. Decker.

It was 12:30; 12:30 in the night.

Mr. Hubert.

12:30 on the morning of the 24th?

« Previous | Next »

Found a Typo?

Click here

Last Update: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 21:56:36 CET