Mr. Fritz.

and cables running on the floors to where we could hardly get in and out of the office.
In fact, we had to get two police officers assigned to the front door to keep them out of the office so we could work.
My office is badly arranged for a thing of this kind. We never had anything like this before, of course, I don't have a back door and I don't have a door to the jail elevator without having to go through that hall for 20 feet, and each time we went through that hallway to and from the jail we had to pull him through all those people, and they, of course, would holier at him and say things to him, and some of them were bad things, and some were things that seemed to please him and some seemed to aggravate him, and I don't think that helped at all in questioning him. I think that all of that had a tendency to keep him upset.

Mr. Ball.

What about the interview itself?

Mr. Fritz.

Now the interview itself inside, of course, we did have a lot of people in the office there to be interviewing a man. It is much better, and you can keep a man's attention and his thoughts on what you are talking to him about better I think if there are not more than two or three people.
But in a case of this nature as bad as this case was, we certainly couldn't tell the Secret Service and the FBI we didn't want them to work on it because they would have the same interest we would have, they would want to do anything they could do, so we, of course, invited them in too but it did make a pretty big crowd.

Mr. Ball.

Did you have any tape recorder?

Mr. Fritz.

No, sir; I don't have a tape recorder. We need one, if we had one at this time we could have handled these conversations far better.

Mr. Ball.

The Dallas Police Department doesn't have one?

Mr. Fritz.

No, sir; I have requested one several times but so far they haven't gotten me one.

Mr. Ball.

And you had quite a few interruptions, too, during the questioning, didn't you?

Mr. Fritz.

Yes, sir; we had quite a lot of interruptions. I wish we had had--- under the circumstances, I don't think there is much that could have been done because I saw it as it was there and I don't think there was a lot that could have been done other than move that crowd out of there, but I think it would have been more apt to get a confession out of it or get more true facts from him if I could have got him to sit down and quietly talked with him.

Mr. Ball.

While he was in your custody up to this time at 11:15, when he left your office what precautions did you take for his safety in custody?

Mr. Fritz.

In custody. We took all kinds of precautions to keep him, anyone from hurting him. We had an officer go with the jailer and back and we did everything we thought we could do.
As I told you a while ago we even put officers on the stage with him and when we couldn't do that put officers at the end of the stage with him so they could get quickly to him if anybody tried to hurt him or molest him.

Mr. Ball.

In your office you always had officers with him?

Mr. Fritz.

Always, right near him.

Mr. Ball.

When you went down this crowded hallway, how did you protect him?

Mr. Fritz.

There were officers went with him each time.

Mr. Ball.

How many?

Mr. Fritz.

From three to six.

Mr. Ball.

And in the jail, what did you do?

Mr. Fritz.

In the jail, I don't know. I didn't handle the jail.

Mr. Ball.

You didn't handle the jail?

Mr. Fritz.

No, sir; I don't handle the jail. I am sure though they used more than average precautions up there.

Mr. Ball.

When you left at 11:15, what was your purpose in leaving at 11:15?

Mr. Fritz.

To transfer him to the you are talking about the 24th?

Mr. Ball.

On the 24th, yes.

Mr. Fritz.

To transfer him to the county jail.