mattkprovideo.com/2023/04/08/jimmy-earl-burt-interviewed-by/

Burt was an accidental witness to the shooting murder of Dallas, Texas Police Officer J.D. Tippet on November 22, 2023.

This is a taped interview with author Al Chapman.

00;00;16;27 – 00;00;
44;06
Speaker 1
This is Al Chapman Jimmy Earl. Burt,
B-U-R-T.
who was a witness to the Tippit slaying on Friday, November the 22nd, 1963.
At that time, Jimmy Earl lived at 505 East 10th Street at the corner of Denver and East 10th, the northeast corner of it. Jimmy tell you in his own words what transpired on that day?

00;00;44;23 – 00;01;05;08
Speaker 2
Well, Me and Bill Smith was driving around and listening to the parade on the radio in the car.
But just I would go home and watch it on TV and sit there while I watched it.
Got un interested in it.
So we went out on the porch and was talking about it.

So we noticed this guy walking down the street
just someone walking , then we
00;01;05;28 – 00;01;08;21
Speaker 1
Where was this person? On the other side of the street opposite you?

00;01;09;02 – 00;01;11;09
Speaker 2
Yes, it was straight across the street.

00;01;12;09 – 00;01;23;24
Speaker 1
Which direction was this person headed in ?

West.

He was headed west on East 10th?
So he was coming from the direction of Marcellus Avenue –

Thats Right.

and walking west on East Tenth

Allright. then tell me what happened after that.

00;01;24;12 – 00;01;45;29
Speaker 2
Well, my wife came out and told us that President Kennedy just been assassinated and we didn’t believe the real kind of laughed it off.
So we got, stood there talking a minute and we started in the house to watch it. We noticed the policeman pull up talk to this guy
and, well, he pulled up and rolled his window down.

00;01;46;04 – 00;01;51;27
Speaker 1
Tell me now, Jimmy. Did. Did you keep this person? Did you hear him in your eyesight all the way down to East Tenth?

00;01;51;28 – 00;01;52;16
Speaker 2
No, I didn’t.

00;01;52;26 – 00;02;01;11
Speaker 1
Then you were standing, talking on the porch? But you’re sure that this is the same guy that had passed on the street a little earlier?

Yes,

Alright go ahead.

00;02;01;29 – 00;02;09;17
Speaker 2
Well, Like I said, we started going into the house.
The policeman roulled out and rolled his window down.
And the guy walked over….

00;02;09;19 – 00;02;11;02
Speaker 1
He rolled which window down?

00;02;11;02 – 00;02;11;18
Speaker 2
The one on the opposite side.

The opposite side, right.

00;02;11;18 – 00;02;13;24
Speaker 1
The Opposite side from the driver. Right.

00;02;14;20 – 00;02;18;08
Speaker 2
And the guy walked up and put his hands down so he could talk and put his window down to where he could talk

00;02;18;08 – 00;02;22;09
Speaker 1
Put his hands on the car. And then down in the window so he could talk.

00;02;22;09 – 00;02;22;21
Speaker 3
Right.

00;02;23;13 – 00;02;43;23
Speaker 2
And they talk for a minute we stood there watching, you know, just curious.
And then the guy just backed off.

You know, we thought just fixing to let him go.

So we started to the house and turned our attention away and started getting into the house,and then then we heard the shot

I turned to Bill. And I told Bill:

That guy just shot that policeman,

we could see him from the street..

00;02;44;14 – 00;02;48;09
Speaker 2
So we ran down there. By the time we started down there, this guy ran

00;02;49;13 – 00;02;50;18
Speaker 1
Which direction did this person head?

West.

00;02;50;18 – 00;02;51;12
Speaker 2
He headed west
The he turn south.

00;02;54;13 – 00;02;59;06
Speaker 1
All right. And so what did you do when you got out of where the officer was shot?

00;02;59;09 – 00;03;03;12
Speaker 2
We stood there a few minutes, you know, looked at the body.
And then we decided…

00;03;04;11 – 00;03;08;00
Speaker 1
Which way was the officer, was he laying land face up, face down or what?

00;03;08;00 – 00;03;11;22
Speaker 2
He was laying on his stomach with his on his face down on his side.

00;03;12;06 – 00;03;14;24
Speaker 1
On his side. Did you notice any bullet wounds or anything?

00;03;14;25 – 00;03;15;07
Speaker 2
Yes.

00;03;15;20 – 00;03;26;21
Speaker 1
One was, side of his head

Side of his head?

So he was laying with the left side of his face towards the ground,
and you noticed a bullet wound in the right temple, you think?

00;03;26;22 – 00;03;28;03
Speaker 2
I think that’s what it was.

00;03;28;14 – 00;03;30;00
Speaker 1
All right. Did you know the officer?

00;03;30;20 – 00;03;31;00
Speaker 2
Yes.

00;03;31;20 – 00;03;35;22
Speaker 1
You knew Officer Tippett before this died or something, but you didn’t know it was him before he was shot?

00;03;35;23 – 00;03;36;04
Speaker 2
No.

How long have you known Officer Tippett?

About Three or Four Years.

00;03;36;23 – 00;03;41;19
Speaker 1
Therefore, you would you consider him a good policeman or what?

00;03;41;22 – 00;03;42;12
Speaker 2
Yes, I do.

00;03;42;24 – 00;03;48;11
Speaker 1
Yeah, I think you made the statement to me a little earlier,
You call him after you all call him officer friendly, right?

00;03;48;15 – 00;03;48;27
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00;03;49;25 – 00;03;59;17
Speaker 1
All right. And so this was just a few seconds. You ran down there and saw who it was. And did you notice anybody around at the time or anybody that you knew or how many people do you remember being around?

00;03;59;22 – 00;04;12;00
Speaker 2
Just a couple of people standing across the street from where his car was. And then there was a couple of people over on the other corner, and then it would.

00;04;12;00 – 00;04;27;11
Speaker 1
Would this Have been the southwest corner or the north northwest corner.

North West.

North West Corner.

All right. So you and Bill Smith went down Park Street. How far down the street did you go? Did you see the person in question? Anywhere down that street towards Jefferson.

00;04;27;11 – 00;04;28;00
Speaker 2
No I didn’t

00;04;28;07 – 00;04;30;11
Speaker 1
That? How far down the street you go?

00;04;30;17 – 00;04;41;28
Speaker 2
But it didn’t go all the way. We just went down to the alley where we..
I had it in my mind to go all the way to Fifth

but when we got to the alley
We kinda found this (unintelligible)

.

00;04;42;15 – 00;04;43;26
Speaker 1
How far down the alley was it?

00;04;44;13 – 00;04;48;13
Speaker 2
He was down almost on the next street street

00;04;48;14 – 00;05;04;09
Speaker 1
The next street?
So he would have been say behind the Church at Crawford in East 10th?

Right.

And that is a parking lot behind the Texaco Filling Station that faces on Jefferson.

That’s right.

Right. Alright.

So what did you do after you saw the person standing down there?

Did you make an attempt to go after him or what?

00;05;04;10 – 00;05;07;05
Speaker 2
No, he had a gun. We didn’t have anything. So…..

00;05;07;05 – 00;05;08;19
Speaker 1
And then what did you do?

00;05;09;02 – 00;05;16;17
Speaker 2
We just stood there for a minute and the guy was going on.
So we turn around, come back to the scene by then there were policemen getting there.

00;05;16;20 – 00;05;19;01
Speaker 1
Did you tell anyone that you’d seen the person down the alley?

00;05;19;12 – 00;05;26;28
Speaker 2
Yes, but.. we TRIED to but there was a crowd, you know, and everybody was talking to the policeman and telling them- this, that, you know.

00;05;27;23 – 00;05;29;16
Speaker 1
Had the ambulance gotten there yet?

00;05;29;16 – 00;05;29;25
Speaker 2
No.

00;05;30;03 – 00;05;37;02
Speaker 1
Were there sirens going, did you hear sirens around at that time?

Yes

What happened then?

00;05;37;16 – 00;05;47;09
Speaker 2
Well, someone said that the policeman, I mean, that the guy down at the library, which is on Jefferson and (Unintelligible)

And we talked and they started running down there.
So we followed them and they went inside,
searched the lace and we stood on the lawn
and they came back out and said no one was there.

So we came back down to scene where Office Tippet killed and..

Just before we got there I could see the Ambulance had got there and ( Unintelligible)

00;06;11;28 – 00;06;15;09
Speaker 1
The Ambulance was carrying Officer Tippet off at that time?

Yes.

And what happened then?

00;06;16;01 – 00;06;20;05
Speaker 2
Well, everybody stood around talking and still going on. Lot of noise.

00;06;21;01 – 00;06;27;00
Speaker 1
Did you give your name to anybody or anything?

Tell them that you were a witness to the shooting?

00;06;27;08 – 00;06;42;18
Speaker 2
Well, everything was starting to thin out,
right after the ambulance left.
And so we got where we could talk,
you know, talk to think of, you know, everything.
And but we didn’t tell them our names.
We just told them where we live. Over on Tenth Street.

00;06;44;24 – 00;06;55;25
Speaker 1
And when did they come to see you?

The next day,

Saturday?

Right.

And how many were they?

Two

Plainclothes Men?

Yeah.

And did they identify themselves or do you remember or.

00;06;56;09 – 00;06;58;18
Speaker 2
Yes. They identified itself, but I can’t remember.

00;06;58;18 – 00;07;02;17
Speaker 1
It was FBI, city police. Right.
And what did you tell them at that time?

00;07;03;02 – 00;07;04;21
Speaker 2
Well, just what I just told you.

00;07;04;27 – 00;07;13;19
Speaker 1
What you just told me .
Did you tell them you had seen it happen ?
Did they ask you anything about the direction the man was coming from
or if you could identify him or what?

Yes. No. They asked me if I could Identify him.
I told them no..
I mean.

00;07;19;18 – 00;07;32;25
Speaker 1
On Saturday Oswald had been captured, right?

Yes.

Had you heard that they had had the man that was supposed to kill the policeman?
Did you know this at the time when they came out to see you on Saturday.

00;07;32;25 – 00;07;33;21
Speaker 2
At that accident?

00;07;33;23 – 00;07;37;10
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00;07;37;10 – 00;07;37;22
Speaker 2
Yes.

00;07;38;16 – 00;07;41;16
Speaker 1
Had you seen a picture of the person that they had arrested?

00;07;41;17 – 00;07;41;27
Speaker 2
No.

00;07;42;06 – 00;07;44;07
Speaker 1
Had you seen it on TV or anything?

00;07;44;08 – 00;07;44;17
Speaker 2
No.

00;07;45;00 – 00;07;47;04
Speaker 1
And when was the first time you saw a picture.

00;07;47;05 – 00;07;47;09
Speaker 3
Of.

00;07;48;09 – 00;07;49;11
Speaker 2
The time he was killed?

00;07;49;18 – 00;07;57;00
Speaker 1
At the time he was killed, right. All right. Now, what did you tell these two plainclothes men that you were talking to on Saturday?

00;07;57;17 – 00;08;08;20
Speaker 2
I just said I just what I saw, you know,
I never came down there.

All right.

They didn’t talk too much.
They didnt say anything, they ust asked used the questions.

00;08;09;12 – 00;08;10;28
Speaker 1
Did they take down anything at that time?

00;08;10;28 – 00;08;12;27
Speaker 2

No, just a name and address.

00;08;13;08 – 00;08;22;24
Speaker 1
All right. Now, you say you were in the Army at the time,

stationed at Fort Polk, Louisiana, right?

Right.

And what did they say about this?

Well, they said theyd contact me later, and I told them that I’d be at Fort Polk.
I had to be back on Monday and.
00;08;31;29 – 00;08;34;29

And when did they come down to Fort Polk talk to you?

I think it was a Tuesday.
Somewhere about the middle of the week.

And What happened then?

They asked me the same things they asked me at home.

Just, you know, what I had saw and-

Same Men?

No.

Do you know where they were from? Did they identify themselves?

Yes.

They were from Shreveport.

Shreveport, Louisiana?

Right.

And what happened at this meeting on Tuesday or Wednesday of the next week?

00;08;57;14 – 00;09;08;07
Speaker 2
Well, I just talked to for a few minutes. No, they didn’t take anything at all. No, no more than that. And they just said, well, we’ll come after you later. Contact you later.

00;09;08;21 – 00;09;09;29
Speaker 1
And when did they contact you?

00;09;09;29 – 00;09;11;04
Speaker 2
Later that weekend.

00;09;11;13 – 00;09;13;27
Speaker 1
That weekend. And where did they contact you?

00;09;13;27 – 00;09;15;29
Speaker 2
At their mother’s house and their mother’s.

00;09;16;03 – 00;09;17;16
Speaker 1
And what happened then?

00;09;18;05 – 00;09;28;22
Speaker 2
Well, they talked to me for a while at the car, and they asked me what I would be back. I told them to be back that night. And they said, well, we just the way they came back down.

00;09;28;22 – 00;09;30;03
Speaker 1
And what day was that? You remember.

00;09;30;03 – 00;09;30;23
Speaker 2
Was also.

00;09;30;29 – 00;09;31;14
Speaker 1
Sunday.

00;09;31;14 – 00;09;31;24
Speaker 3
All right.

00;09;33;03 – 00;09;38;17
Speaker 1
So you rode back with the two plain clothesman, to Fort Polk?

00;09;38;20 – 00;09;39;01
Speaker 2
Yes.

And then what happened?

Well, we got down there and then they made me
tell my story about 4 or 5 times.

And how long did they question you? Just

About 3 or 4 hours

Four. Three?

Did they make a tape recording or take notes or write it down or what?

They took notes.

Took notes.

But they didn’t record anything.

Did you sign anything?

No.

Did you tell them at that time that you could not identify
the person that you saw as being Oswald?
Did they ask you this?

Yes

Did they say, can you identify this man as Oswald?

Yes, they did.

And you said what?

I said, ‘I couldn’t tell you.’

Do you have any idea what your friend Billy Smith told them?

As far as I know, they never talked to him

Never talked to and worry of Billy Smith.

Where is Billy Smith (at this time)?
(Unintelligible)

Do you have an address for Billy?

00;10;27;06 – 00;10;27;22

No. I don’t

00;10;27;27 – 00;10;40;24
Speaker 1
Could you get me an address for him?

Yes I could.

All right.
So you talked to them three or four hours on Sunday, a week after the killing of Officer Tippet?

That’s right.

And they talked with you three or four hours.
And what did they tell you after they got through with you?

They told me theyd contact me u later, but they never did.

00;10;44;01 – 00;10;49;28
Speaker 1
And this was roughly around December the first, 1963, right? And you’ve never talked to anyone since?

00;10;49;29 – 00;10;50;08
Speaker 2
No.

00;10;50;20 – 00;10;54;09
Speaker 1
And you cannot identify Oswald as being the man who shot Officer Tippet

00;10;54;14 – 00;10;54;25
Speaker 2
Again.

00;10;55;11 – 00;11;03;08
Speaker 1
And the person that you saw that shot, Officer Tippit was walking from Marcellus Avenue in a westerly direction on East 10th.

00;11;03;10 – 00;11;03;19
Speaker 2
Right.

00;11;03;28 – 00;11;14;16
Speaker 1
And that’s the same person that shot Officer Tippit.

Right.

Okay. I sure do appreciate this Jimmy,
and we’ll be contacting you later,

Okay.

00;11;14;22 – 00;11;45;24
Speaker 3
This is Alan Chapman who you heard interview Jimmy Earl Burt.

B-U-R-T.
Who now lives at at 404 east 10th in Dallas, Texas.
This is the address in which Officer Tippit was shot in front of this house.

There’s a few things I would like to say here, that Jimmy was in a hurry.
He took time off from work to go home to his apartment and make this interview.

So we didn’t get everything on it that we wanted to

A few things, like to go over, number one, Jimmy’s age at the time that Officer Tippit was slain was 20 years old.
Jimmy was born November the 18th, 1943.
He’s now 24 years old.

Jimmy told me that he figured the time it took from the time that he ran from his front porch with his friend Billy Smith down to where Officer Tippit was shot.

00;12;19;06 – 00;13;03;20
Speaker 3
And he said at this time, Officer Tippit pistol was in the holster.
It wasn’t laying on the ground or laying underneath him. It was in his holster.

But the length of time it took for them to run from the front porch down to where Tippet was shot and view the body a few seconds,
then run down to the corner of Patton and 10th and turn south and go halfway down Patton towards Jefferson Boulevard, where the alley started in in a westerly direction, or when they saw this person that shot Officer Tippit there in the next block, which would have been at Crawford Street, they saw him going on.

00;13;03;20 – 00;13;22;25
Speaker 3
He said at this point they didn’t want to chase him because they didn’t have a gun or anything and they were afraid to.

They turned and went back to Patton & 10th and back around
to where Officer Tippet was laying .

And there was a crowd gathered there at the time
and a lot of policemen around.

So they certainly got there pretty fast.

00;13;22;25 – 00;13;46;16
Speaker 3
And someone said,
Well, he’s over at the library on Jefferson Boulevard between Marcellus and Denver.

So everybody runs around over there.
And while the police are inside searching the place where they stood out on the lawn in the police come out and say that
the guy wasn’t in there.
So they all go back around to where Officer Tippit was laying.

00;13;47;09 – 00;14;25;14
Speaker 3
And Jimmy said at the time that they approached the scene of the Tippit slaying that the evidence was pulling off at this time. And I believe that the record stated the Hammonds arrived. 119 So they probably will give them a minute to put the body in the ambulance and go on to the hospital. So this would be at roughly around 1:20 p.m. He said that he figured it would taken them the time they ran from the front porch and did all of this and back to when the ambulance was leaving a good five or 6 minutes.

00;14;26;05 – 00;15;03;14
Speaker 3
So this would have put Officer Tippit being slain somewhere
in the neighborhood of 12, 13 minutes or so after 1:00,
which would certainly not be enough time for Oswald to
get from his apartment in approach to the scene from coming
from the east to the west on East 10th and Marsalis Boulevard.

He also said that the person put his hands on the right side of

the car as he leaned down and talked in the window.

00;15;03;14 – 00;15;49;13
Speaker 3
So certainly there should have been some fingerprints on the squad car,
and I don’t remember reading or anything about them finding Oswald’s fingerprints on the squad car.

So I just wonder if they did check the squad car for fingerprints.

I would imagine that they did.

Jimmy also said that after they viewed Tippetts body
for a few seconds as they ran from his porch down to the scene,

they ran all around on that street and down to where the alley was,
halfway down between East Hampton, Jefferson Boulevard,

that there wasn’t anybody from coming from Jefferson Boulevard up this in the direction of East 10th.

00;15;50;08 – 00;16;35;18
Speaker 3
So there wasn’t anybody on the street or on the sidewalk.

And he said they had intentions running on down to Jefferson, as you heard. But they stopped at the alley and looked down, saw this person down in the next block, which was west from that street.

So there wasn’t anyone in the street at all.
And I believe it’s testimony said that some couple of men in the car lot across the street
north of Reynolds car lot said they immediately ran out on the sidewalk
and saw this person with the pistol waving it in the air,
coming down towards them and crossing half way down the block over on the other side of the room,

down

00;16;35;18 – 00;17;07;19
Speaker 3
to Jefferson and around and towards the Texaco filling station west on Jefferson.

So it must be two different guys because
Jimmy Earl, said there wasn’t anybody on Patton Street at this time
when they ran around the corner and viewed the person in the alley.
So somebody seen two different people,

maybe it was a plain clothed man or somebody with a pistol that was

going on around in chasing after Oswald.

00;17;08;02 – 00;17;57;06
Speaker 3
It was at the time.

But anyway, it certainly looked like two different people that these people are seeing at the time.

When I told Jimmy Burt what the Warren Commission had to say about Oswalds path
when he left this scene of where he supposedly killed Tippit and ran down Patton Street

and around the corner on Jefferson and down to the Texaco filling station and across back through to the parking lot behind the church between this and this station, in a church,

he said that he didn’t know anything about that and he never had read it,
but he didn’t believe that the person that shot Tippit would have had enough time to have taken that path

00;17;57;06 – 00;18;26;24
Speaker 3
because he said they trotted a block down to where Tippit was laying on the street and just there a few seconds and then went on around the corner and they didn’t see anybody in sight down towards Jefferson.

And they did see the guy down the alley
in the next block west down here behind the church.

So he didn’t believe that that person would have had enough time to taken that path to be where they viewed him down there.

00;18;27;13 – 00;19;04;28
Speaker 3
And that length of time for them just running, say, a block and a half in the path that they said Oswald took.

He would have had to have run roughly two blocks and a half to be at that spot. So this is just another discrepancy and a coincidence at the time.

My interview with Jimmy Earl Burt took place between 2:30 and 3:30 p.m.
Wednesday, February the seventh, 1968,
in his apartment at 404 Tenth.

00;19;05;21 – 00;19;34;29
Speaker 3
I’m now at home and at 11:00 pm at my home that I’m making this special part here.