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What time did Oswald allegedly shoot and kill Dallas police officer J D Tippit?
Executive Summary
Lee Harvey Oswald is variously reported to have shot and killed Dallas police officer J.D. Tippit between approximately 1:06 p.m. and 1:16 p.m. Central Time on November 22, 1963; the most commonly cited times cluster around 1:14–1:16 p.m. in many mainstream accounts, while some witness-based reconstructions and radio-log interpretations place the fatal shooting earlier, around 1:06–1:10 p.m. This divergence reflects reliance on different evidence sets—Warren Commission timing and later public timelines versus contemporaneous witness statements and police radio logs—each of which has been used to anchor the Tippit shooting relative to President Kennedy’s assassination [1] [2] [3].
1. Why the clock times split — witness memory versus official timetables
The central reason for differing times is the tension between contemporaneous witness recollections and the sequential timetables constructed later by investigative authorities and memorial sources. The Warren Commission’s Appendix 12 places the shooting at approximately 1:15 p.m., with some witness reports noting 1:16 p.m., and that official reconstruction has been carried forward into many mainstream summaries and memorial markers that emphasize the event occurring roughly 45 minutes after Kennedy’s 12:30 p.m. shooting [1] [4]. By contrast, witness Helen Markham—whose testimony has been emphasized by investigators and dissenting analysts—estimated the shooting occurred in the 1:06–1:07 p.m. window; proponents of the earlier time point to a cluster of witness timing and the gap between the actual shooting and the police radio emergency call recorded around 1:15–1:16 p.m. as consistent with an earlier incident time [3].
2. What the Warren Commission and mainstream references say and why that matters
The Warren Commission’s timing carries institutional weight: Appendix 12’s approximation of 1:15 p.m. serves as the basis for many official and educational retellings, and tertiary sources such as Britannica align with that estimate, stating the Tippit murder occurred at about 1:15 p.m. This alignment is visible across historical markers and public timelines that link Tippit’s death to being roughly 45 minutes after Kennedy’s assassination, a framing that simplifies the sequence for public memory and commemoration. Using these timepoints places Oswald’s alleged killing of Tippit in a narrow window after the president’s murder; that narrative supports the investigative chronology used to trace Oswald’s movements from Dealey Plaza to the Tippit scene and ultimately to his later arrest [1] [5] [4].
3. Why some researchers insist on an earlier minute-by-minute account
Alternative reconstructions emphasizing an earlier Tippit shooting at ~1:06–1:10 p.m. rely on close readings of witness statements and police radio logs that record calls about the shooting between 1:15 and 1:16 p.m., which advocates interpret as indicating a prior incident time. Witness Helen Markham’s estimate and analyses that prioritize immediate eyewitness timing argue the shooting could not have occurred as late as 1:15–1:16 p.m., because the emergency broadcast timing and eyewitness reaction times suggest the shooting was already completed by the time radio traffic began. This strand of analysis aims to reconcile the sequence with observed human response intervals and direct line-of-sight witness testimony rather than the aggregated timetable later produced [3] [2].
4. Timetables, memorials and secondary sites that reinforce the 1:14–1:16 p.m. window
Public timelines, museum materials, and commemorative markers commonly cite 1:14–1:16 p.m. as the time of the Tippit shooting, often tying that figure to the shorthand “45 minutes after Kennedy” for clarity in public-facing narratives. Several timeline reconstructions list 1:14:30 p.m. as the precise moment Oswald allegedly fired at Tippit, and photographic and historical portals reiterate the approximate 1:15 p.m. framing. These consolidated times are widely reproduced across educational and memorial content, which reinforces a commonly accepted sequence in public discourse even as specialists debate finer points from primary-source logs and statements [2] [6] [4].
5. Putting the disagreement in perspective and what remains settled
Despite minute-level disagreement, the broad facts are consistent: Officer J.D. Tippit was shot and killed on November 22, 1963, in the early afternoon, and Lee Harvey Oswald has been identified by official investigations as the assailant. The key unresolved detail among sources is whether the shooting occurred nearer 1:06–1:07 p.m. (based on some eyewitness timelines and radio-log interpretations) or around 1:14–1:16 p.m. (as recorded in Warren Commission appendices, many timelines, and memorial accounts). Readers should note that choice of evidence—official report vs. immediacy of witness statements—drives the difference, and both perspectives are reflected in reputable sources cited in the historical record [3] [1] [7].