(Testimony of Gerald Lynn Hill)
Mr. Hill.
we took a coffee break somewhere around 11:30 or 12, I don't know the exact time.
Mr. Belin.
When was the last time you saw Jack Ruby prior to the shooting of Oswald?
Mr. Hill.
It was probably 6 to 8 weeks, and that was a contact that I was walking by a garage one night about the time he came down to get his car, and we talked for a minute and that is all.
Mr. Belin.
Do you remember what you said or what he said at all, or not?
Mr. Hill.
It just was a greeting. We hadn't seen each other in quite a while. In the interim, I had been on--normally when I was on a rotating schedule of working evenings and deep nights, the Carousel Club was located in the district that I worked quite often, and I would stop in there once in a while, and I had been on a special assignment for about 2 months working straight days, in town and out of town, and I hadn't been by or hadn't seen him, and this particular night we ran into each other, and he wanted to know what I was doing, and I told him I was working in personnel.
And he said, I haven't been much around much lately, and I said, "I am staying home."
Mr. Belin.
When was the last time you saw him prior to that meeting?
Mr. Hill.
Probably the last time, I was in his place on duty, maybe 3 or 4 weeks before this.
Mr. Belin.
I wonder if you would describe the situation in the police department on the third floor with regard to reporters or what have you during the period of time that you brought Oswald in and during the rest of the time you might have been there on the afternoon of November 22?
What did you find when you got there?
Mr. Hill.
There wasn't anybody except the ones that were down in the basement waiting for us to bring him in, and they were standing in the doorway, that if you turned to the right, you go in the jail office.
If you go straight, you go into the basement of the building.
Some of them rode up on the elevator with us. When we started off the elevator, they got ahead of us and shot us walking down the hall and took pictures of us going to homicide.
We carried him into the interrogation room and they followed us into the homicide office.
At this time probably there were six or seven people, Jim Underwood from KRLD was one of them, and I don't recall any more specifically by name.
But as time went by in the afternoon, more and more people came in until I would say about 6:45 or 7 o'clock that night, the night of the 22d, when I left, there were some 70- or 80-odd reporters and floodlights and two or three live cameras and several more cameras on tripods, and out-of-town reporters, and local reporters, and everything else, that officers were on duty and in uniform to keep the halls open as much as possible.
And if you wanted to go from the elevator entrance on back toward homicide or to any of the other detective offices, you had to drag your way through TV cables and bodies of people, seesawing your course to get through there.
Mr. Belin.
Now you have stated when we first started this deposition that you had some background in either newspaper or radio or television?
Mr. Hill.
Yes, sir.
I worked at the Herald both as a police reporter, as a newswriter, and a radio-TV editor, and left there and went with WBAP as a member of their Dallas Bureau, covering the, working out of an office in the police station here in Dallas, and covering police news and all other types of news also.
Mr. Belin.
Was there any request ever made to the press people to clear the hall or clear the floor at all?
Mr. Hill.
Not to my personal knowledge; no, sir. It could have been made when I wasn't there, or it could have been made before I got there, or after I left or while I was in an office or something, but I don't know that a direct order was ever given to get everybody out.
Mr. Belin.
Could you tell us what general discussion there was among the officers, the line officers, without quoting any names that might embarrass anyone, about all of these people and paraphernalia there?
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