The testimony of J. Herbert Sawyer was taken at 3:45 p.m., on April 8,
1964, in the office of the U.S. attorney, 301 Post Office Building,
Bryan and Ervay Streets, Dallas, Tex., by Mr. David W. Belin, assistant
counsel of the President's Commission.
Mr. BELIN. Would you stand and raise your right hand.
Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you are about to give will be
the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
Mr. SAWYER. I do.
Mr. BELIN. What is your occupation?
Mr. SAWYER. Inspector of Police.
Mr. BELIN. Of what Police Department?
Mr. SAWYER. Dallas Police Department.
Mr. BELIN. You live here in Dallas?
Mr. SAWYER. Yes, sir.
Mr. BELIN. Inspector, how long have you been with the Police Department?
Mr. SAWYER. 23 years.
Mr. BELIN. That would be then you came to the Police Department around
1941 or so?
Mr. SAWYER. 1941, is right.
Mr. BELIN. You have been with them ever since 1941?
Mr. SAWYER. Except for a brief hitch in the Service during the war.
Mr. BELIN. What did you do in the Service?
Mr. SAWYER. I was a yeoman in the Navy.
Mr. BELIN. Honorable discharge?
Mr. SAWYER. Yes.
Mr. BELIN. Prior to going into the Service, what did you do?
Mr. SAWYER. Policeman.
Mr. BELIN. Before you went into the Service?
Mr. SAWYER. Yes.
Mr. BELIN. Did you go to school here in Dallas?
Mr. SAWYER. Yes.
Mr. BELIN. Graduated from high school?
Mr. SAWYER. Yes. I didn't graduate. I lacked half a year.
Mr. BELIN. Then you got out and you went in--did you go right on the
police force then?
Mr. SAWYER. No.
Mr. BELIN. What did you do?
Mr. SAWYER. I worked as credit manager in a jewelry company. This was
immediately prior to coming to the police department.
Before that, I was a doorman at the Mural Room of the Baker Hotel.
Mr. BELIN. When you first got out of high school, what did you do?
Mr. SAWYER. I went out to California and went to work as a clerk in a
grocery store.
Mr. BELIN. What did you do after that?
Mr. SAWYER. Came back to Dallas and went to Business College, and then
I went to work as a doorman at the Mural Room of the Baker Hotel.
And then from there I went to the jewelry, and later became credit
manager.
Mr. BELIN. And then after that?
Mr. SAWYER. Then to the Police Department.
Mr. BELIN. You have been with the Police Department ever since except
for this time in the Navy?
Mr. SAWYER. Yes.
Mr. BELIN. How old are you?
Mr. SAWYER. 47.
Mr. BELIN. You are married?
Mr. SAWYER. Yes.
Mr. BELIN. Inspector, were you on duty on November 22, 1963?
Mr. SAWYER. Yes.
Mr. BELIN. By the way, were you an Inspector at that time?
Mr. SAWYER. I was.
Mr. BELIN. Where were you stationed with reference to the motorcade?
Just what were your duties?
Mr. SAWYER. I had charge of the crowd detail on Main Street from Akard
to Harwood.
Mr. BELIN. After the motorcade passed, what did you do?
Mr. SAWYER. I headed west on Main Street.
Mr. BELIN. Did you immediately get in your car after the motorcade
passed?
Mr. SAWYER. Well, not immediately, because the crowd was real thick and
completely surrounded the car, but I did as soon as it was feasible to
get back in the car.
Mr. BELIN. Do you remember where your car was parked?
Mr. SAWYER. Yes. It was parked on Ervay Street, at the intersection
of Ervay and Main, but it was, well, it was on the north side of Main
Street on Ervay.
It run parallel to Main Street.
Mr. BELIN. All right, you got in your car shortly after the motorcade
passed then?
Mr. SAWYER. Yes.
Mr. BELIN. Then what did you do?
Mr. SAWYER. Well, I headed west, or tried to. I had to wait until the
crowd cleared out, and as soon as the crowd cleared enough, I headed
west on Main Street.
Mr. BELIN. Any particular reason why you headed west on Main Street?
Mr. SAWYER. Because that was the way the car was pointed at the time I
got in.
Mr. BELIN. All right, then what did you do as you went west on Main
Street?
Mr. SAWYER. I just went real slow down the street because of people
crossing, and at the time, the radio broadcast came in about a lot of
activity down at the lower end around Houston and Elm Street.
Mr. BELIN. Do you remember what radio broadcast this is?
Who broadcast it?
Mr. SAWYER. I heard Sheriff Decker come on the radio and tell the
dispatcher to get all of his men over to, and I thought he said Texas
School Book Depository, but at least that was the overall gist of the
conversation. That is what I gathered. He may not have said Texas
School Book Depository, but the Texas School Book Depository was
mentioned in the broadcasts that were made at that time.
Mr. BELIN. Was this on Channel 1 or Channel 2 if you remember?
Mr. SAWYER. Channel 2, I am sure.
Mr. BELIN. Did Sheriff Decker have any particular call number at all,
or not, in your police number system?
Mr. SAWYER. No. I was wondering why he come on our radio, but then I
think that he was with Chief Curry and probably using that radio.
Mr. BELIN. All right, in any event, a call was made from Chief Curry's
car?
Mr. SAWYER. Well, this I don't know either. I don't know what car it
was made from, but I think it was Sheriff Decker talking. I could
recognize his voice, yes.
Mr. BELIN. What did you do then?
Mr. SAWYER. Then I went on down to the Texas Book Depository.
Mr. BELIN. Where did you park your car?
Mr. SAWYER. In front of the Texas School Book Depository.
Mr. BELIN. In front of the main entrance there?
Mr. SAWYER. In front of the main entrance.
Mr. BELIN. What did you do then?
Mr. SAWYER. Immediately went into--well, talked to some of the officers
around there who told me the story that they had thought some shots
had come from one of the floors in the building, and I think the fifth
floor was mentioned, but nobody seemed to know who the shots were
directed at or what had actually happened, except there had been a
shooting there at the time the President's motorcade had gone by.
And I went with a couple of officers and a man who I believed worked in
the building. The elevator was just to the right of the main entrance,
and we went to the top floor, which was pointed out to me by this other
man as being the floor that we were talking about. We had talked about
the fifth floor.
And we went back to the storage area and looked around and didn't see
anything.
Mr. BELIN. Now you took an elevator up, is that correct?
Mr. SAWYER. That's right.
Mr. BELIN. The route that you took to the elevator, you went to the
front door?
Mr. SAWYER. Right.
Mr. BELIN. Then what did you do?
Mr. SAWYER. We got into the elevator. We run into this man.
Mr. BELIN. Well, when you say you got into the elevator, where was the
elevator as you walked in the front door?
Mr. SAWYER. It was to the right.
Mr. BELIN. To the right?
Mr. SAWYER. Yes, sir.
Mr. BELIN. Was it a freight elevator or a passenger elevator?
Mr. SAWYER. The best of my recollection, it was a passenger elevator.
Mr. BELIN. Did you push for the top button in that elevator?
Mr. SAWYER. Well, I don't know who pushed it, but we went up to the top
floor.
Mr. BELIN. You went up to the top floor that the elevator would go to?
Mr. SAWYER. That's right.
Mr. BELIN. You got off, and were there officers there?
Mr. SAWYER. There was one or two other officers with me.
Mr. BELIN. Now when you got off, you say you went into the back there
into a warehouse area?
Mr. SAWYER. Storage area; what appeared to be a storage area.
Mr. BELIN. Did you go into any place other than a warehouse or storage
area?
Mr. SAWYER. No.
Mr. BELIN. Was there anything other than a warehouse or storage area
there?
Mr. SAWYER. Well, to one side I could see an office over there with
people in it. Some women that apparently were office workers.
Mr. BELIN. Now Inspector, what did you do then?
Mr. SAWYER. Well, I didn't see anything that was out of the ordinary,
so I immediately came back downstairs to check the security on the
building.
Mr. BELIN. When you say check the security on the building, what do you
mean by that?
Mr. SAWYER. Well, to be sure it was covered off properly, and then
posted two men on the front entrance with instructions not to let
anyone in or out.
Mr. BELIN. What about the rear entrance?
Mr. SAWYER. Well, I also had the sergeant go around and check to be
sure that all of those were covered, although he told me that they were
already covered.
Mr. BELIN. When was the order given to cover the front entrance of the
building?
Mr. SAWYER. Well, they had it covered when I got there. There were
officers all around the front. The only thing I don't think had been
done by the time I got there, was the instructions not to let anybody
in or out.
Mr. BELIN. All right, now, did you give the instructions not to let
anyone in or out?
Mr. SAWYER. I did.
Mr. BELIN. Did you give those instructions before or after you came
down from the fourth floor or top floor?
Mr. SAWYER. After I got down.
Mr. BELIN. So your procedure, if I understand it, was this. You were
driving on Main Street when you heard Sheriff Decker on the radio?
Mr. SAWYER. Yes.
Mr. BELIN. Inspector, to try and reconstruct the time of sealing off
the building, I believe you said that before you got to the building,
or at about the time you got to the building, you thought that you
heard something about the Texas School Book Depository over the radio?
Mr. SAWYER. Right.
Mr. BELIN. At least some time before you left your car, is that correct?
Mr. SAWYER. Yes; it would have to be, in order to hear it.
Mr. BELIN. Now, I have with me the transcript of the radio log here of
November 22, and I notice that, according to the log, at 12:30, and you
have examined it, there appears there is a statement by Chief Curry,
and then something by Sheriff Decker concerning, well, we'd better call
this Sawyer's Deposition Exhibit A, which is a transcript of the radio
log, and it reads right now--we will try and restaple it later on--but
right now, Page 2 and 3 are reversed insofar as the order is concerned.
You see at 12:28 p.m., on this exhibit Curry calls in that they are
near the triple underpass, and then at 12:30 p.m., it says, "Station
Break," is that right?
Mr. SAWYER. Yes, sir.
Mr. BELIN. Then the next thing that goes on, it is Number 1, which is
Chief Curry's number, am I correct in that?
Mr. SAWYER. Right.
Mr. BELIN. Then according to the transcript, the statement is made--you
might just read it here in front of you: "Go to the hospital, officers,
Parkland Hospital, have them stand by. Get men on top of the underpass,
see what happened up there, go up to the overpass. Have Parkland stand
by."
You see these words here, Inspector Sawyer?
Mr. SAWYER. Yes.
Mr. BELIN. Then on a continuation, "Dallas-1," which is marked in by
someone as Sheriff Decker says: "I'm sure it's going to take some time
to get your men in there. Put every one of my men there."
Then there is a call back to Curry from 531, which is your home
station, is that correct?
Mr. SAWYER. That's right.