Chief BATCHELOR. City hall elevator.
Mr. GRIFFIN. The first place that you referred to was the entrance way
in the garage. Were some people congregated there, and was there a man
at the No. 1 or No. 2 elevator?
Chief BATCHELOR. Yes.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Do you know who he was?
Chief BATCHELOR. No; I didn't pay any attention to who he was. It was a
uniformed man standing over there. I later learned this was a reserve
that was over there, but I didn't pay any attention.
Mr. GRIFFIN. The uniformed man was a reserve officer?
Chief BATCHELOR. Yes.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Who did you later learn that from?
Chief BATCHELOR. In the course of the investigation later.
Mr. GRIFFIN. I see. Some days after Oswald was shot?
Chief BATCHELOR. Yes.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Now after going over near the elevator where the uniformed
reserve officer was, what did you do next?
Chief BATCHELOR. Well, we went back upstairs. And Stevenson had gone at
this time. We went down this first time to see the layout, and there
wasn't too many here. We went back upstairs, and Chief Stevenson sent
some detectives down, and brought his uniformed men in. I came down
the last time, was just before the removal of the prisoner, and in the
meantime I had contacted Mr. Fleming about the armored motor car.
Mr. GRIFFIN. You came down three times?
Chief BATCHELOR. I went up once, and then Stevenson and I came down and
looked this thing over, and then down with Curry, and then the last
time.
Mr. GRIFFIN. On the first occasion when you were down there, you say
you saw this uniformed reserve officer. Did you later learn what his
name was?
Chief BATCHELOR. I don't remember it. It is in the report.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Would you mark with an "X" on the map where that reserve
officer was standing and the approximate time?
Chief BATCHELOR. (marking). He was standing over here.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Let the record indicate that he has marked it with a
circle. This is again somewhere around 9:15 or 9:30?
Chief BATCHELOR. Somewhere along there.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did you learn in the course of your investigation his name?
Chief BATCHELOR. I don't recall his name.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Would that appear anywhere in the report, do you think?
Chief BATCHELOR. Not in that report. It would appear in the reports
that were made by Captain Jones in the course of investigating who was
where. You have a diagram similar to this with everybody marked on it,
and he is on one of those.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Had he been stationed there by somebody?
Chief BATCHELOR. Yes; now I could be mistaken about the exact time I
saw him there. That is, whether it was this trip or the trip before. I
could be mistaken about it, but I do remember seeing him here when we
came down.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Excuse me, do you want to mark the map then what the
alternate time might be? You might write whatever time you think it was.
Chief BATCHELOR. (marking). He was there before then, but I am talking
about when I may have seen him there.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Now, Chief, after you left the basement area on this first
trip, where did you go?
Chief BATCHELOR. We went back upstairs to the office.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did Chief Stevenson go back up with you?
Chief BATCHELOR. Yes.
Mr. GRIFFIN. When you got back up on the third floor, were there news
media personnel on the third floor?
Chief BATCHELOR. There were some up there.
Mr. GRIFFIN. I take it, it was not what you consider a crowded
condition.
Chief BATCHELOR. No.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Were there television cameras still there?
Chief BATCHELOR. Yes.
Mr. GRIFFIN. When you arrived at 8 o'clock in the morning, were there
TV cameras up there?
Chief BATCHELOR. Yes.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Were the TV cameras manned at 8 o'clock in the morning?
Chief BATCHELOR. Yes; the best I remember, they were.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Do you recall what TV stations had cameras up there at
that time?
Chief BATCHELOR. It was KRLD and WFAA, if I remember right. And I could
be mistaken about the WFAA. It could have been WBAP.
Mr. GRIFFIN. How do you happen to remember KRLD?
Chief BATCHELOR. They were the first ones in there and they had their
truck parked outside. And also, I am pretty sure it was WFAA, because
WFAA had a truck parked on the Harwood Street side.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Were you able to tell at 8 o'clock in the morning if they
were shooting footage?
Chief BATCHELOR. I couldn't tell. All the time that I remember, they
had these little viewers in the back of the thing and you could see
through them and see what was going on through them, look through the
camera. Whether they were shooting footage, there wasn't anything to
shoot that morning. It was pretty quiet.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Now, the second trip when you came back upstairs after
your first trip downstairs, where did you go?
Chief BATCHELOR. After the first trip, I came back up to again get in
touch with Mr. Stevenson and tell him.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Fleming?
Chief BATCHELOR. Fleming, I mean, and tell him what the height of that
thing was. Then he told me, well, I will just send both trucks down
there and you can take the one you want.
Mr. GRIFFIN. This second phone call, was Mr. Fleming at home?
Chief BATCHELOR. Yes, sir.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Do you know whether Fleming had been contacted by anyone
in your office or Decker's office or anybody else prior to your first
phone call to him?
Chief BATCHELOR. I would think not. He couldn't, because this was his
first knowledge of it.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Could you tell us what else you said to him? What else
this conversation involved?
Chief BATCHELOR. I don't recall saying anything other than expressing
our appreciation for his help. And he said he would send both of the
trucks down. I told him how to bring the trucks. I told him to bring
them east on Harwood--I mean on Commerce Street, and that we would back
it down the ramp so that we would be leaving the ramp in the right
direction when they pulled out.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Up to the time that you had this second conversation with
Fleming, had you discussed with anybody the route by which you would
take Oswald to the county jail?
Chief BATCHELOR. Nobody but Chief Curry, that I recall, and probably
Chief Stevenson. As a matter of fact, this route that they were to
take was worked out more between Stevenson and Curry and Fritz than
it was with me. My primary job here was to get the truck and get the
cars placed, and it was decided that Chief Curry would lead the car
down there, followed by a car of detectives, and then the armored car,
and then followed by another car of detectives, and then followed by
Stevenson and I in a rear car.
Mr. GRIFFIN. This planned route of the movement was to go from Commerce
to Central Expressway, left to Elm Street, then down Elm Street?
Chief BATCHELOR. To Houston; yes, sir.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Now as a result of that decision, were any cars or
officers called in from the field?
Chief BATCHELOR. Yes.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Who?
Chief BATCHELOR. Talbert called his officers in. He had called and
scattered them up. And then there was some discussion about taking it
down Main Street, and I am not too sure where I got this information,
but anyway, he sent a sergeant and moved those officers over a block to
Main Street.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Why was the route changed?
Chief BATCHELOR. Well, I don't know. The route was changed without my
knowing it, really. When they decided to take Oswald in an automobile
instead of the armored car.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Who participated in that decision?
Chief BATCHELOR. Chief Curry, Chief Stevenson, Captain Fritz, I
believe--I was not in there when it was discussed.
Mr. GRIFFIN. After you talked to Fleming the second time what did you
do?
Chief BATCHELOR. Then he said he would send them over, and we went
down there to get the cars lined up. This must have been, oh, probably
10:45, 10:30 to 10:45. I went downstairs and I saw the basement well
covered. We had a man at the top of the ramp on Main Street. We had
several men in the basement leading into the garage area just before
you get to the jail office, and I went through there, and Stevenson was
with me.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Let me interrupt you here, Chief. I think I will pull out
another map so that we can mark it. I am going to mark this map, for
the purpose of identification, "Dallas, Tex., Chief Batchelor, March
23, 1964, Deposition Exhibit 5001." Now I want you to use this exhibit,
Chief, to indicate what you saw on this second trip downstairs, which
you indicated would be what time?
Chief BATCHELOR. I came out of the elevator into the basement and saw
a number of officers across this area right here. There were several
detectives.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Would you mark that with "X's"?
Chief BATCHELOR. [Marking.] Detective there. We walked through here. We
noticed these cameras had been moved out.
Mr. GRIFFIN. You are talking about the passageway past the jail office?
Chief BATCHELOR. Past this jail office here. I noticed that inside the
jail office there were three or four photographers inside the jail
office.
Mr. GRIFFIN. At that point, you were at the jail office door nearest to
the ramp driveway, and you looked in that door and you saw some news
people?
Chief BATCHELOR. Yes; photographers.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did you recognize any of them?
Chief BATCHELOR. I don't recall them. We went in there and moved them
out. We went and instructed the jail supervisor that there was to be no
one in that jail office except officers.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Who was the supervisor?
Chief BATCHELOR. Lieutenant Wiggins. And we moved them out and we
instructed the reporters, and there were a number of them down there at
that time, by no means all of them, that--later there were, but there
was a good many--we told them they would have to stand back over here.
Mr. GRIFFIN. That is against the railing?
Chief BATCHELOR. Along the railing. And they had set up two TV cameras
behind this railing.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Would you mark with an "S," where the two cameras were set
up?
Chief BATCHELOR. [Marking.] Then there was another one right here.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Was that third camera there when you came down at 10:45?
Chief BATCHELOR. I don't think so. That was the one sitting over there.
These were the two sitting out here.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Now the two cameras that you placed there had been
originally near the record room?
Chief BATCHELOR. Yes.
Mr. GRIFFIN. When did you see them near the record room? When you came
in in the morning?
Chief BATCHELOR. No. That trip down after we came down.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Would you take Exhibit 5000, and would you mark those two
TV cameras that you saw on the first trip?