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Warren Commission Hearings: Vol. IV - Page 351« Previous | Next »

(Testimony of Winston G. , Accompanied By Fred B. Smith, Lawson)

Mr. Lawson.
Not unusual. There were crowds along the way, sometimes heavier than others in about the spots that it was expected to be that way.
Mr. Stern.
What was your impression of the attitude of the crowd generally?
Mr. Lawson.
It looked quite friendly, not as hopping and skipping as much as some other places, but very friendly and sometimes people just jumped up and down and screamed and yelled. This one seemed to be a quite friendly group by and large.
On one occasion I noticed a sign, I can't recall what it is right now, but it was an out-of-the-ordinary sign, a sign designed to catch someone's attention, and I thought right then that probably it would catch the President's attention if he was looking to the right-hand side of the car, which he was, and he stopped there, which is not unusual.
Sometimes he would stop for certain groups, certain types of people at certain places unannounced, if there was something that caught his fancy or caught his eye, and he did there. And of course the crowd pressed around, and the other agents got off the followup car, got around his car.
Mr. Kellerman got out. I was a little bit more ahead than I had been. We back up, stopped the motor car, told everybody by radio what was happening, the other police that we were stopped. Before I was out of the car to give any assistance, why we were moving again.
Mr. Stern.
Was that a built-up area with high buildings or were you still in the suburbs?
Mr. Lawson.
No; that was a suburban-type of area, a shopping center-type of area out away from the downtown area.
Mr. Stern.
I think perhaps now you could tell us what you observed and what transpired from the time your car turned into Houston Street off of Main.
Mr. Lawson.
As I have said previously today, right around that corner I gave this radio broadcast that we were 5 minutes away.
Mr. Stern.
Was this while you were on Houston or had you turned?
Mr. Lawson.
We had turned the corner. We were either at the corner, I believe we were just about at the corner when I asked the question if I shouldn't give about a 5-minute signal now so we must have been around the corner then when I actually finished broadcasting. It doesn't take long.
Mr. Stern.
Around the Houston-Elm corner?
Mr. Lawson.
Yes, sir; right in front of the Book Depository Building, and then a little ways away from that probably by the time I had finished broadcasting.
I noticed a few people along the right-hand side I can recall now, and more people on the right-hand side than out in the center strip median which is there, a grassy center strip. There weren't many people on the left at all. I recall thinking we are coming to an overpass now, so I glanced up to see if it was clear, the way most of them had been, the way all of them had been up until that time on the way downtown, and it was not. There was a small group, between 5 and 10 that looked like workmen. I got the impression, whether it was wrong or not I don't know, that they were railroad workers. They had that type of dress on.
And I was looking for the officer who should have been there, had been requested to be there, and I noticed him just a little bit later, that he was there, and I made a kind of motion through the windshield trying to get his attention to move the people from over our path the way it should have been.
But to my knowledge I never got his attention, and I have said in one of these statements that we were under the bridge, and I have said in another one that we were just approaching this overpass when I heard the shot. I really do not know which one is so, because it was so close, but we were about at the bridge when I heard the first report.
Mr. Stern.
Now just to finish up with the people on the overpass, were they in a crowd together, or spread out?
Mr. Lawson.
They were spread out 1 or 2 deep, and as I say, between 5 and 10 of them to my knowledge, and I noticed the police officer standing behind them about in the middle of the group.
Mr. Stern.
And as' far as you can remember now, in a position to observe all of them? Were they in close enough a group?
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