From: Robert.Daniels@bbs.oit.unc.edu (Robert Daniels)
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy.jfk,alt.conspiracy,sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: Oswald's Photo, 3 Bums and JFK.
Date: 22 Jul 92 15:54:47 GMT
Organization: Extended Bulletin Board Service

In article <1992Jul22.005658.12006@augean.eleceng.adelaide.edu.AU> dabbott@augean.eleceng.adelaide.edu.AU (Derek Abbott) writes:
>
>
>The following article appeared in the Sunday, February 9, 1992 edition
>of the Houston Post (Houston, Texas).
>
>Has anybody heard of any follow up work done on tracing those 3 bums
>yet??
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>                    First Look at Dallas' JFK Files
>
>                           -----------------
>
>                 Evidence on Oswald Photo, Arrested 'Bums'
>
>                           -----------------
>
>        By Ray La Fontaine and Mary La Fontaine
>        Special to the Houston Post
>
 [deletions]
>
>        At the time of their arrests -- because of their efforts to
>reach boxcars in the rail yard behind the plaza -- the three were
>suspects in the assassination.
>
>        Until now, no arrest records were believed kept -- a frequent
>criticism leveled at Dallas police by assassination conspiracy
>researchers and widely repeated in the media, including a recent cover
>story in Newsweek magazine.
>
 [deletions]
>
>        There have been many unanswered questions concerning the three
>men -- one apparently in his 50s, the others in their early 30s --
>arrested within minutes of the shooting in Dealy Plaza.
>
>        Though allegedly vagrants pulled from boxcars, the men were
>noted in photographs to sport fresh haircuts and suspiciously good shoes.
>The supposed lack of official arrest documentation -- including the
>failure to even retain their names and their immediate release and
>disappearance -- has raised the greatest consternation among conspiracy
>researchers.
>
>        The archival files show records were indeed apparently kept on
>the three.  They list their names as Gus W. Abrams, 53, Harold Doyle,
>32, and John Forrester Gedney, 38.  Left empty on arrest forms, however,
>are spaces for an arrest number, ID number and right thumbprint.
>
>        The reports, filed by officer W. E. Chambers, are dated Nov. 22,
>1963, at 4 p.m.  They list charges against the three as vagrancy and
>robbery.
>
>        "These men were taken off a train boxcar in the rail yards right
>after President Kennedy was shot," Chambers writes on Abrams' arrest
>description.  Descriptions on the two other reports are similar.
>
>        The reports indicate the men were not released immediately, as
>previously believed, but four days later.
>
 [deletions]
>
>Comments?

For one follow-up on these police reports see:

   Weberman, Alan j., and Michael Canfield
    1992  COUP D'ETAT IN AMERICA: THE CIA AND THE ASSASSINATION
          OF JOHN F. KENNEDY. San Francisco: Quick American Archives.
          [Revised edition]
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Specifically, see pages 347 through 353 (the section entitled
"The Tramp Tramps."  Michael Canfield went to Dallas and tried to 
interview the policemen involved.  Canfield's conclusion is:

   "Where these men _the_ Tramps?  Judging from the arrest records
   they were not.  Instead, they were different tramps who happened
   to be picked up that day." (p. 249)

While Canfield gives a detailed explanation of the reasons for this
conclusion, it should also be noted that he has another strong reason for
not identifying the tramps as Abrams, Gedney, and Doyle, which is his 
suggestion that the tramps may have been E. Howard Hunt, Frank Sturgis
(Frank Fiorini), and "Dan Carswell."

Robert Daniels
--
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