Mr. BALL. You say "we." Who was with you?
Mr. MOONEY. There was another officer there, Hiram Ingram--he is an
officer, also, a deputy sheriff. And I believe Ralph Walters was
standing there with me, and I believe there was a lady standing there,
by the name of Martha Johnson, who is one of the judges' wife, a JP
judge.
I believe Officer Boone was standing near us, also. And I don't recall
how many more. There was a number of officers there.
Mr. BALL. What happened, as you remember?
Mr. MOONEY. After that few seconds elapsed, we heard this shot ring
out. At that time, I didn't realize it was a shot. The wind was blowing
pretty high, and, of course, it echoed. I turned my head this way.
Mr. BALL. You mean to the right?
Mr. MOONEY. To the right; yes, sir. We were facing more or less south.
And I turned my head to the right.
Mr. BALL. That would be looking towards Houston Street?
Mr. MOONEY. Looking towards the old court.
Well, when I turned my head to the right; yes, sir. I would be looking
west. And there was a short lapse between these shots. I can still hear
them very distinctly--between the first and second shot. The second and
third shot was pretty close together, but there was a short lapse there
between the first and second shot. Why, I don't know. But when that
begin to take place--after the first shot we started moving out. And by
the time I started running--all of us except Officer Ingram--he had a
heart attack, and, of course, he wasn't qualified to do any running.
Mr. BALL. Which way?
Mr. MOONEY. Due west, across Houston Street, went down across this
lawn, across Elm Street there--I assume it is approximately the
location the President was hit.
Of course the motorcade was gone. There wasn't anything there except a
bunch of people, a lot of them laying on the ground, taking on, various
things. I was running at full speed.
Mr. BALL. When you ran across Elm, where did you go?
Mr. MOONEY. Across Elm, up the embankment, which is a high terrace
there, across--there is a kind of concrete building there, more or less
of a little park.
Jumped over the fence and went into the railroad yards. And, of course,
there was other officers over there. Who they were, I don't recall at
this time. But Ralph Walters and I were running together. And we jumped
into the railroad yards and began to look around there.
And, of course, we didn't see anything there. Of course the other
officers had checked into the car there, and didn't find anything, I
don't believe, but a Negro porter. Of course there were quite a few
spectators milling around behind us. We were trying to clear the area
out and get all the civilians out that wasn't officers.
Mr. BALL. Why did you go over to the railroad yard?
Mr. MOONEY. Well, that was--from the echo of the shots, we thought they
came from that direction.
Mr. BALL. That would be north and west from where you were standing?
Mr. MOONEY. Yes, sir. To a certain extent--northwest. The way the echo
sounded, the cracking of the shot. And we wasn't there many seconds--of
course I never did look at my watch to see how many seconds it took
us to run so many hundred yards there, and into the railroad yard. We
were there only a few seconds until we had orders to cover the Texas
Depository Building.
Mr. BALL. How did you get those orders?
Mr. MOONEY. They were referred to us by the sheriff, Mr. Bill Decker.
Mr. BALL. Where was he when he gave you those orders?
Mr. MOONEY. They were relayed on to us. I assume Mr. Decker was up near
the intersection of Elm and Houston.
Mr. BALL. Did you hear it over a loudspeaker?
Mr. MOONEY. No, sir. It come by word, by another officer.
Mr. BALL. And you were with Walters at that time?
Mr. MOONEY. Right. And where Officer Walters went at that time, I don't
know. We split up. I didn't see him any more until later on, which I
will refer to later.
Mr. BALL. Where did you go?
Mr. MOONEY. Mr. Webster and Mr. Vickery were there with me at the time
that we received these orders from another deputy.
Mr. BALL. They are deputy sheriffs?
Mr. MOONEY. Yes, sir; they were plainclothes officers like myself, work
in the same department, and we run right over to the building then,
which we were only 150, 200 feet back--I assume it is that distance--I
haven't measured it. It didn't take us but a few seconds to get there.
When we hit the rear part, these big iron gates, they have cyclone
fencing on them--this used to be an old grocery store warehouse--Sachs
& Co., I believe is correct. And I says let's get these doors closed to
block off this rear entrance.
Mr. BALL. Were the doors open?
Mr. MOONEY. They were wide open, the big gates. So I grabbed one, and
we swung them to, and there was a citizen there, and I put him on
orders to keep them shut, because I don't recall whether there was a
lock on them or not. Didn't want to lock them because you never know
what might happen.
So he stood guard, I assume, until a uniformed officer took over.
We shut the back door--there was a back door on a little dock. And then
we went in through the docks, through the rear entrance.
Officer Vickery and Webster said, "We will take the staircase there in
the corner."
I said, "I will go up the freight elevator." I noticed there was a big
elevator there. So I jumped on it. And about that time two women come
running and said, "we want to go to the second floor."