Living History with James "Jim" Leavelle 

I had the privilege of meeting Mr. Leavelle some years back. He was in his 90’s ….still very serious…..still no nonsense. God bless the man. He was present during two of the most dire events in US history. May he RIP. 🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽

In a Simpsons episode, Homer attends a bodyguard camp named after Leavelle. I fell on the floor laughing.

RIP Mr. Leavelle. You are missed!

This is a FANTASTIC series. Very valuable eyewitness insights to history. It's unfortunate that the audio quality is less than perfect (which I've noticed in several of the segments).

Gary Mack went from being a Real researcher to a Curator paid $250k a year and changed his tune. $$$$$ talked.

I’m glad he lived on for many years 99 a good age RIP Jim

All that interrogation and no notes or recordings made? Why would you destroy your notes of the most important case of this century?

Thank you, it was very interesting.

Great Stuff!

Today is his 100th birthday. Happy birthday sir.

He mentioned what Oliver Stone did to make the movie more entertaining. Stone admitted he combined all of the conspiracy theories in one movie. Still, some people quote parts of that movie as fact. Some of the claims made in the movie range from ridiculous to outrageous.

Rest in peace to both men...very much involved in this case...

He's one of them

I'm glad he can tell his story on what happened on November 22nd 1963.

Leavelle has always stated that he caught a glimpse of Ruby in the crowd and saw he was holding a gun by his side. Leavelle says he SAW Ruby move towards Oswald and he attempted to pull Oswald away, that's why Oswald was shot more in the side instead of a straight gut shot. Well look at the still photos. Leavelle is NOT looking towards Ruby has he lunges at Oswald. He also stated they tried to make the line ups as fair as possible. Take a look at the pictures, hardly fair.

Rest in peace

What a great man, He has a big part in this historical event, I was curious if he also investigated the Shooting of J.R Ewing at South Fork in around 1980.

Lee emptied his revolver at the scene ?

Charles why in the world would this man give you the creeps that sf I uh md creepy to me

i don't get it, he looked old in 63' already...how old he was in 2008?

Big Jim was a giant in more ways than one, he also knew fine well that Oswald did the deed & he was spot on.Good auld Jim, a life well lived.

Hey Dallas Oswald was getting death threats all saturday night so it was a real possibility I can see why he made the statement you schould do your homework before you make dumb comments

WOW, detective Leavelle is still alive? On the film of LHO getting shot Leavelle looks oldish even then, like 45, so I thought he'd be long dead or about 100yrs old?

WHy would recording be prohibitied when they are recording it themselves?

What was he doing in the place where doctors were working on the patient? That sounds odd?

I agree that you have to place yourself in Oswald’s frame of mind. Assuming Oswald was the assassin and was the man who shot Tippit, Oswald had to assume that his name and description had been broadcast. He might not have answered Tippit’s questions which would explain why Tippit got out of the car. The question is, would you stop a man that fit the description of the presidential assassin who was also presumed to be armed in such a relaxed manner?

In 1988, at the ASK Conference in Dallas, commemorating the 25th Anniversary of the Assassination. Way before the symposium was to begin, I happened to catch him for about 10 minutes, just me and he. I asked as many questions, rapidly and politely that I could get in in a short time frame. I found him genuine, honest and very truthful. Now, fast forward to this video, I believe he didn't get into the things he responded to me about, because Gary Mack went from being an honest researcher and when made Custodian of the 6th Floor Museum, Mack changed. Of course Mack led Officer Leavelle down a different path, and when he was getting into "more details" than what the 6th Floor Museum cohorts want out, then Mack would lead him onto another topic. Many of the things I found out (I was very involved as far as researching at that time, and knew very incisive questions to ask.) I don't think Leavelle revealed very much here, but sorry to say, when I spoke with him, he gave me alot more "meat." (of course that was 32 years ago, and I took no notes.)

James lavelle once said Oswald had a sweet singing voice. He sounded like Bobby Darin and spent many minutes entertaining the police singing ‘splish splash and Mack the knife ‘. Does anyone have a recording ?

Interesting

Why did he say grassy knoll? Not the texas book depository?🤔

Mr Leavelle was a cousin of mine on my dad's side through his maternal grandfather. Wish I could have met him.

My understanding is that Oswald’s wife did NOT identify the jacket found hidden under the car as Lee Harvey Oswald’s jacket. The jacket was only sold in stores in the Los Angeles and Philadelphia areas and had a dry cleaning tag that the FBI was unable to match with any dry cleaning establishments. Was this jacket ever tested to see if it would fit Oswald or tested for gunpowder residue?

His recollection of the moment he saw Ruby's gun and knew what was "fixin' to happen" was BS, if you watch the footage in slow motion. He didn't see the gun until it was being used, as he was looking at the car entering the area to his right.

Went to dealer plaza was very interesting and outside on the road are two black xs where jfk was shot at

so this guy Failed to protect his prisoner ... well done ol B

So Ruby knew Pierce if he did not come down that ramp how in the hell could he tell Lavelle that?

@ 27:11 Why in the Hell would you mention anything about someone shooting at the prisoner? That always struck me as a wee bit more than a coincidence.

Wow at Pearl Harbor attack and handcuffed to Oswald when Jack Ruby shot him.

Some things about Oswald people do not readily recognize or concede: For a "lone nut" he was a paragon of autonomy who had always maintained himself from an early age on. His record in the Marine Corps was pretty average, he did not have a conduct or disciplinary problem. He was not discharged for conduct, discipline or adjustment issues. He was given a hardship discharge but failed to support his mother after his discharge. At the time of his discharge he had about three years of service, and the Marine Corps probably was willing to let him go without a lot of investigation. His discharge was honorable but later was downgraded to the administrative level of undesirable on the presumption that he had told the Soviets secrets about the U-2 spy plane program. He was not a defector to the Soviet Union, as he is sometimes described. It was legal for him to live in the Soviet Union, and he was not the first or the last to do so. The Soviets did not seek information from him about his U.S. military service and in fact suspected that he might be an American spy. They eventually correctly assessed him as a mentally unstable adventurer with communist sympathies. He was not an incompetent shooter, his rifle range scores in the Marine Corps were average to low average. He was not mentally deficient. His IQ score was reported as 112, close to the top quintile deemed the minimum to complete undergraduate college and go on the graduate or professional study. He was not incompetent in the Russian language. He took the military language assessment test and based solely on self study received a good score in reading ability. He became relatively fluent in Russian after living in the Soviet Union and spoke Russian at home with his wife Marina. He aspired to a life of adventure and intrigue and was prone to grandiose gestures. He, for example, attempted to renounce his American citizenship immediately upon arriving in the Soviet Union. But it was not illegal for an American citizen to live in the Soviet Union, which made this gesture totally unnecessary. He is suspected of being the person who in 1963 fired a shot into the home of retired Gen. Edwin Walker, a right wing activist. but this is not proven.

always plan your escape on a bus!!!!

Why was he the only man wearing White? If you look at video of him and Oswald, he is the only person wearing a White suit and hat. It is also interesting that some one gave Oswald a black sweater. Oswald and the Leavelle in the White suit with Oswald in black were easy to pick out.

In medicine, mds, know never to remove foreign items from bodies because that may cause more damage in the removal process.

Leavelle nailed Mack on changing his mind

Come to respect this man...truth talking...no nonsense....takes you to the bottom line...

I am still upset that there were no recordings of the interrogation of LHO. I don't blame the Dallas cops for not being able to prevent the murder of LHO. But when there aren't any things but the detective's memory to reckon what happened on 11/22/63. There is no excuse for neglecting to have those recordings when it was so significant. If we had hard copy of his and LHO's voices we may have less conspiracy theorists or conspiracy realists.

And exactly why did Oswald allegedly shoot Tippett? AND. When they took his pistol, did it contain empty shells? Or 'live' bullets? Where was Oswald going? And why?

I drive by the book depositary all the time so am fairly familiar with what Karen Westbrook Scanton was describing. Karen said 1. She was standing right next to the Stemmons freeway sign; 2. The shots she heard were from behind her (19:27). Go to googlemaps, find the sign and you will see what is directly behind it -- the grassy knoll! The building where she worked is way to the left of her. Today's sign is different from 1963 one but its located at the same spot.

The morning of the assassination a police car was parked out side of Lees house. It was the car of Officer Tippits. The two knew each other.

Wouldn't want him to guard me

"We were prepared for it" You didn't look too prepared in Bob Jackson's photo. Jim likes to make snide remarks about "the media", but who else was wearing a white suit in the basement that morning?

He kept saying, "See, I" in other parts of the interview as well. He wasn't saying "CIA". What's the matter with you people?

he looked in his 50s in the picture with Lee Harvey Oswald........

I wonder what Oswald was trying to do, or where he was planning to go when he came across Officer Tippit. Did he have a plan? He must have known it would not take long to identify him as missing from the Book Depository.

See I told you ruby never knew Oswald you heard it from the horses mouth

What about Mac Wallace?????????????

I’ve always wondered, though, about the Dallas Police Department from the 60’s-70’s, just as people wonder about the LAPD at that time in the post WWII era. The entire country had a dark undercurrent despite the optimism that people have painted the period, what with the Boomers and all. To me the fact that lots of drinking, smoking, Miltown (like the Valium of today) and highly unhappy people were lost 😞 back then….well my point is that the police were stressed and the civil rights era was keeping the Democrats who ran the South very very tense (people forget that the South were solid Democrats except for black Americans who voted Republican) and so the people like Oswald, total misfits, were regarded as suspicious violent people….he had lived in New York and in Russia and New Orleans….and it was a weird thing. My mom felt some vigilante would kill Oswald because the south had that “shoot first ask questions later” thing going on (we’re San Francisco people going back to 1867).

Naturally 1+1=103,465

Once he opened his mouth I didn’t believe what he said about Oswald.

He talks about only incidental detail to deflect away from the central issues; hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. ... corrupt or incompetent or both ? LHO-RUBY-CARLOS MARCELLO. Dorothy Kilgallen was on the case, so she was eliminated. No mention of or hint about that. Interesting to note where he tries to lead away into tangential minutiae.

Jim, you have had a lot of years to get your story straight. You are a liar my friend.

Incredible the countless hours of research on this awful day. Blows my mind people think just 3 shots 6 floor. 2 rifles were found there some researchers say 1 was Oswald's 1 was LBJ hitman Wallace. Some heard shots from grassy knowell bunch heard shots from 6 floor book blg. 1 thing that you can see on zapruder film prices to me there was more than 1 shooter. Last 2 shots in super slow motion or frame by frame jfk holding his throat area he briefly leaned forward in pain this was shot to the upper back which was shown in an autopsy photo a second later the awfull exploding bullet from right front side shoves him hard forward an to his left. You will never convince me it was just a lone wolf Oswald 3 shots 6 floor or that last fatal shot came from 6 floor cause if it did jfk would have fallen forward hard or stay forward after upper back shot an bullet would have come out front of his face

Mr. Leavelle contradicts himself on the sweater story.

the 6th should have been left the way oswald left it

It was preplanned, Jim Levellel was to dress in a light colored suite & light hat. He was to appear at the window of the jail where he could be seen by Ruby from the Western Union office. Ruby would then walk to private entrances used only by cops to be let in by the cops, LHO's transfer was delayed on purpose by claiming a postal inspector wanted to question him about the mail order gun purchase. If you watch the clip the police detective dressed in the light suit on seeing Ruby in place moves to his right fully exposing LHO for the kill shot. The final plan was to overturn Ruby's guilty verdict & have him killed before the retrial. Ruby though witnessed by millions killing LHO in cold blood would die an innocent man, yet LHO whom nobody had seen kill J D. Tippet or JFK & would have been found "not guilty" had he stood trial, is named as the assassin of JFK on a plaque in Dealey Plaza. The real criminals who planned, executed & covered up the coup-d 'etat will never be brought to justice & America will live in infamy.

Wonder why Leavelle wore a white suit that day?

Gary Mack? The same Gary Mack that was involved in performing a reenactment that included trying to demonstrate how Kennedy could not have been hit from the front because Jackie would have also been hit. The recreation included placing Jackie's head BEHIND JFK's. The group actually put Jackie's head between John's head and the back of car demonstrating she would have been struck by the bullet when it exited John's head.

In 1998 I was a few feet away from the window LHO shot from and saw the red X on the pavement marking JFK's position the instant he was hit. I could not sit where Oswald sat crouched behind those boxes arranged exactly as there were that day, a large plexiglass panel protects the window from souvenir hunters, but the 80 yard distance convinced me the shots all came from there.

i want to believe him..but i dont... all this was too odd.. ruby just walked in..and timing was ..too close..

If LHO was getting death threats why parade him around whilst still in the police station where you should have control? Or perhaps that's what they wanted.

Auto shot what are you saying the man is lieing

Great Interview, Fact: 1) Jim Leavelle is one of the officers whose team failed to protect their prisoner during a prisoner transfer. Q: How reliable is he and others members of the team? They totally screwed up and now they are the ones left to tell the story... what a joke! 2) There are many inconsistencies in his statements, for example, He states that he saw the Jack Ruby holding the gun. Look at the actual video footage of the shooting. Jim Leavelle was stone faced. He did not yell gun, he did not take swift action other than to back away from Oswald. He actually appears surprised. 3) Jim's conflicting statements in this testimony show that it is possible that Good ole boy justice in the south is whatever they decide they want to make up to help close the case and hide their mistakes. 4) Jim states that you could count on one hand the number of Dallas police officers that frequented Jack Ruby's club and that critics are overreacting about this. Q: How many police officers does it take to allow Jack Ruby, an armed man with a police arrest record, to have unrestricted access to the Dallas police department's basement during a high profile prisoner transfer? We are not sure but apparently less than you can count on one hand. 5) Jim appears to be a very nice guy, a smart guy and a very dedicated police officer, but if he was selling investments, I would not believe him enough to buy. He has outstanding memory but there are too many inconsistencies in his story.

the only dude in the basement in a 'over here but don't shoot me', light colour suit

This man has always given me the creeps.

James lavelle gone too soon

Your job was to safely transfer, and protect the prisoner, and you failed to do so. You screwed up, as did the other members of the Dallas police dept in charge of this prisoner, and security of the transfer. Plan and simple. Period.

I was born in 1974....and he always looked big, mean, and tough. I get the distinct feeling he WAS big, mean and tough. I would have not wanted to tussle with this lawman. He'd have kicked my ass.

These guys really ought to have their stories straight by now... (or whenever this was filmed...) And, before I go any further, let me point out that this isn't conspiracy theory made up nonsense, this is all documented, and readily available, actual, bone fide evidence. Oswald was arrested on the back of a phone call made by the cashier of the Texas Movie Theatre after a shop worker from a few doors down told her that he had seen this man sneak past her without paying and advised her to call the cops, because he matched the description of the suspect wanted in connection with the Dealey Plaza shooting. (NOT the Tippit shooting...) This guy's name was Johnny Brewer. HE said that he became suspicious of Oswald after hearing on the Radio a description of the assassin of JFK (No such announcement had gone out over public radio concerning Tippit's murder prior to Oswald's arrest) and believed that Oswald was acting in a suspicious manner. (If you want to see and hear Brewer stating this quite categorically, look up the film "Rush to Judgement"... its available in full on RU-vid. Whether you agree with documentary maker Mark Lane or not... Brewer makes it quite clear that it was the Kennedy suspect he was responding to.) The woman who phoned in the tip (Ms Postal) obviously gave a poor description of the 130-135 Lb 24 yr old Oswald for the DPD to match him to the 165 lb man in his mid thirties that had been broadcast... How lucky that it just happened to be the right guy anyway, eh? Still, it's a weird situation; that the detective handling the Tippit shooting was holding a suspect who had been arrested based off the description given for the Kennedy shooting...

I like him

It is just wild how Clint Hill and Jim Leavelle, down play what a piss poor job they did that week end, it is almost as though they are patting themselves on the back . Today they would be severly demoted or tossed of the department.

Some if these comments are not right

Why did he wear a white suit on that day? Why was he the only man in a white suit that day? Pretty easy to spot in a white suit, even from blocks away at Western Union office through the windows.

Book evidence of a conspiracy, mostly pics taken that day

Bevery Oliver JFK Conference

*THIS WAS FILMED LIVE IN REAL TIME ON TELEVISION YOU LIAR.* Thanks for not correcting him Detective and yes indeed History does not forget.

The man in the white suit.....

14:13 48:06

When the interview begins with lies and distractions it tells you what to expect. The value of this interview is to realize what he says is: what exactly did not happen. keep researching.

I learned a lot about tippit shooting from this man now I know 100 percent iswaks shot tipoitt

Whether he knew it or not Jim was part of the cover up!

I feel bad for this guy. If you wasn't as dirty as he looks and made no money. God rest his soul.

Leavelle was a lier n Wana b he reminds me of the little guy on Barney Miller he wore a light colored suit so he could b seen

Why were you wearing a white suit? Why were you wearing a dark suit the prior day and every other LE official wearing a dark suit? How many men in Dallas are wearing white suits? Why did you stand in front of the window of the interrogation room in your white suit? How often does your wife - as you claim - put out your clothes for you?

Hmm, I guess he had radio duty on December 7, 1941 and pulled away just as the Japanese bombed the conning tower in Hawaii.

Jim Leavelle was in on it too wearing a white suit was Ruby's cue to shoot Oswald

Not a nice man, according to some. Guess he's got his nice face on. Some of it "we" deserved? How about "I" deserved?

love how they get irritated by the final question from the non caucasian!!!

DPD does NOT wear white.

To little to late. I would love to hear from the two witnesses who said they saw Oswald shoot J.D. Tippit. Tippit was shot 3 times in the chest and once execution-style in the temple. Oswald was never found with a gun on him. Maybe if you go back to the theater you may find it still in one of the seat cushions issued to a CIA handler of Oswald.

Gary Mack was rather rude to that last questioner. All those year espousing the JFK conspiracy and then takes Govt bucks to defend the ludicrous official line. Retirement and poverty made him do a complete U-turn. Hey we all need money and so did he.

Dude moving and thinking slower than pond water, in his stetson lbj hat.