Goodnight Dallas!

I read that and thought, "WOW...the guy has to be REALLY old if he was in Pearl Harbor in 1941". Yeah...99 years old! I hope he lived a fulfilling life after living through that crazy event. As a side note, I had once heard/read that Ruby had syphilis and that's what made him nuttier than a fruit cake.

quote:

Originally posted by erj_pilot:
As a side note, I had once heard/read that Ruby had syphilis and that's what made him nuttier than a fruit cake.

Considering his line of work, that would be no surprise at all.

^^^^^^^^^^

In this link, Robbie Robertson of The Band describes his experience with Jack Ruby's nightclub

https://youtu.be/C4-F6GaqnD8

"On March 14, 1964, after deliberating less than an hour, the jury returned a guilty verdict of premeditated murder, later sentencing Ruby to be executed for the crime. After his arrest, there had been a steady mental deterioration and the conviction hastened his decline. The very item that kicked off his original interest on the weekend of the assassination, the Weissman advertisement, and his belief that it could have been published to embarrass Jews, grew into an obsession. His sister Eva was distraught over his disintegration. He often told her to kill herself because "he thinks they are going to kill out all the Jews and he made remarks that 25 million Jews have been slaughtered, on the floor below, in the jail. Sometimes it's planes going over and they are dropping bombs on the Jews." He told Eva that he could hear and see Jews boiled in oil and that he had recurrent visions of his brother Earl and his children being dismembered. The police guards used to watch him put his ear to the jail wall and say, "Shhh! Do you hear the screams? They are torturing the Jews again down in the basement."

He thought he had been blamed for killing President Kennedy, that Lyndon Johnson was a Nazi, and there was a conspiracy to eliminate all Jews, to which he had fallen a victim by killing Oswald. Jack tried to kill himself on several occasions. Once, he tried to split his skull by pounding his head against the wall. Once he tried hanging, and once he tried to electrocute himself with a light fixture. He kept a picture of President Kennedy in his cell and kissed it during the day. "He is mentally deranged," Eva told the Warren Commission. - Gerald Posner, Case Closed, ppg 400-401

He was a Dallas cop from 1950 through 1975, that served the city in more ways than a supposed "deterrent" to those seeking to assassinate Oswald. The citizens of that city got what they paid for and he certainly lived long enough to fully utilize the pension he earned! Good for him!

This from a friend who knew him at Dallas PD: He was A US Navy veteran and a Pearl Harbor survivor, and a living legend of the Dallas Police Department. He was still sharp and conversational on his 99th birthday last week, and still wore the trademark short-brim Stetson worn by DPD Homicide detectives of the Kennedy era.

He certainly deserved my respect.

(responding to Il Cattivo's post, which he deleted)

I believe I'm familiar with the event. He was killed with a sword, was he not? A photo of him after he was stabbed the first time was pictured in Life magazine. Very dramatic shot. But are you certain that this was televised live? Not filmed and then broadcast a short time later, but live on television?

Guiness seems to disagree with you.

**edit**

Doesn't look like it:

On October 12, 1960, Asanuma was assassinated by 17-year-old Otoya Yamaguchi, a nationalist, during a televised political debate for the coming elections for the House of Representatives. While Asanuma spoke from the lectern at Tokyo's Hibiya Hall, Yamaguchi rushed onstage and ran his yoroi-dōshi (a traditional samurai sword) through Asanuma's ribs on the left side, killing him. Japanese television company NHK was videorecording the debate for later transmission and the tape of Asanuma's assassination was shown many times to millions of viewers. The photograph of Asanuma's assassination won its photographer Yasushi Nagao both the Pulitzer Prize and World Press Photo of the Year.

So, TV cameras were there, but it wasn't live.

Hear that, Lee? You record holds, ya sorry POS.

The picture was actually taken after the 17-year-old stabbed Asanuma the first time (reportedly with a 30cm-long blade - not sure what kind, beyond it being a traditional Japanese design but not a full-sized katana).

Here's the footage - please feel free to delete if it's a distraction from a thread about Mr. Leavell. The attack begins on-camera just after the 1:13 mark.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?t=bIru_1520812726

Edit: Ah, just saw your edit. Saw it claimed online that it was televised live, but that could just be the internutz for ya. I'll delete these posts shortly.

Well, there's no need to delete your post. As a matter of fact, if you do, it makes it look like I'm talking to myself. You can leave it up. Interesting thread, wouldn't you say?

Yeah. Perhaps for the wrong reasons, but, yeah.

quote:

Originally posted by Il Cattivo:
Yeah. Perhaps for the wrong reasons, but, yeah.

Now, that's an odd comment, considering your contributions to this thread.

And you deleted your post anyway, leaving it looking like I'm talking to myself. What the heck, man? What was this all about? Coming into the thread just to be right? One second, you're linking us to video of an assassination and the next second, you feel all icky. ??

This is a very odd way to behave.

It wasn't intentional. I didn't refresh until I deleted the first post. I also always felt like Leavell got kind of a raw deal - the guy was a Texas Ranger for years and apparently had a pretty solid career, but this is the incident most people will remember him for - so I felt kinda guilty about bringing up Asanuma even though I did it anyway.

When you and I die, we shall be forgotten in a generation or two, but Jim Leavell is- in a sense- immortal because of his proximity to history.

Ninety-nine years is just about all any human can ask for and he surely made the most of it, so, I disagree with anyone who thinks we should be sad right now. On the contrary. We're perpetuating the man's life.

I was with Dallas PD from 1987 until late 2010. I met Jim Leavelle two or three times over the years and he was always cordial.

Being thrust into a terrible moment in history can change a person. By all accounts, Mr. Leavelle remained the same person he was before November 24, 1963. He carried his unwanted fame and place in history with humility and dignity until the day he died.

Godspeed, Detective Leavelle.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
When you and I die, we shall be forgotten in a generation or two, but Jim Leavell is- in a sense- immortal because of his proximity to history.

Ninety-nine years is just about all any human can ask for and he surely made the most of it, so, I disagree with anyone who thinks we should be sad right now. On the contrary. We're perpetuating the man's life.

I heard a report today that he died suddenly on a trip to Colorado to visit friends or family so he must have still been somewhat healthy and mobile. That by itself is an accomplishment at 99. Sounds like he got his moneys worth.
In the testimony about Oswalds killing, he mentions trying to get his boss to let them take him out on the other side of the building on another floor above the basement because there wasn't anyone there. The higher ups had promised the press a chance to photograph the event so they wouldn't change the plan.
He'd likely have made it out alive if they had listened to him.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I think I read that Mr. Leavell fell and broke his hip just days before his passing. I don't understand why a broken hip turns into such a detrimental death sentence for the elderly, or maybe it was just coincidence in his case.

Para, as compelling as Posner’s book is, it somewhat pales in comparison with Vince Bugliosi’s “Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F Kennedy”
1612 pages of the most in-depth research and analysis by one of the finest legal minds who ever lived. No rational person could cling to a conspiracy theory after reading this.

Thanks, Frank. I did read Bugliosi's Helter Skelter.

quote:

I think I read that Mr. Leavell fell and broke his hip just days before his passing. I don't understand why a broken hip turns into such a detrimental death sentence for the elderly, or maybe it was just coincidence in his case.

Common. Hip fracture leads to blood clots infection etc. One in three people over 50 who break their hip are dead within 12 months. Sobering stat.