Re: THE DEALEY PLAZA EARWITNESSES
David Von Pein
http://www.JFKAssassinationForum.com/index.php/topic,2294.msg40426.html#msg40426
As most people know, "eyewitness" and "earwitness" testimony is very
often the least-dependable type of evidence to rely on with respect to
relating it to a particular crime that has been committed. And that
rule of thumb must also apply to the JFK assassination as well.
I like to drag out the following pie chart from John McAdams' website
every now and then, just to remind conspiracy theorists of the tough
fight they've got when it comes to putting a lot of faith in the
Dealey Plaza witnesses who said they heard shots coming from the
Grassy Knoll area:
The above chart illustrates a very interesting thing about the Dealey
Plaza assassination earwitnesses who fall into the "Grassy Knoll"
section of the chart -- it clearly illustrates that ALL OF THEM WERE
WRONG.
How does it illustrate that?
Simple:
Since everybody knows, even all conspiracy theorists of the world
(except perhaps David S. Lifton), that at least SOME of the gunshots
originated from the REAR of Kennedy's limousine during the
assassination (otherwise, how on Earth can anybody--including Lifton--
logically explain the UPPER-BACK ENTRY WOUNDS to both President
Kennedy and Governor Connally?), then the 33.7% of the 104 witnesses
that comprise the data used for the above McAdams pie chart are wrong
when they said that ALL of the shots they heard (regardless of the
exact number of shots) came from ONLY the Grassy Knoll.
Are we really supposed to believe that those "Knoll Only" witnesses
somehow managed to hear MULTIPLE gunshots coming from the area of the
Grassy Knoll (and virtually all of those witnesses certainly heard
more than just ONE shot fired; in fact, probably all of them heard
multiple shots), and yet at the same time ALL of the people making up
that 33.7% of Dealey witnesses, incredibly, didn't hear a single one
of the known gunshots that originated from the Book Depository, which
was to the REAR of Kennedy's car?
That's silly.
The key statistic, IMO, in the above pie chart is the "Two Directions"
pie slice. Only 4.8% of those 104 witnesses (which is a mere FIVE
witnesses out of 104!) said they heard gunshots coming from TWO
distinct and separate locations in Dealey Plaza.
That's incredibly significant, especially when we consider the type of
multi-gun scenarios placed on the assassination table by people like
Jim Garrison, Oliver Stone, and Robert Groden. Those conspiracy
theorists have conjured up scenarios which include a ridiculously-
large number of shooters and gunshots -- with Garrison at one point in
1967 suggesting that "there were at least five or six shots fired at
the President from front and rear by at least four gunmen"! [Quoting
from Jim Garrison's October 1967 "Playboy" interview.]
And Oliver Stone put his nutsville "One Patsy" theory on the movie
screen, so it can be enjoyed and laughed at for all time--with Stone
thinking Oswald was being set up as a LONE PATSY even though Stone's
got THREE GUNMEN (and none of them Oswald, of course) and SIX gunshots
being fired at President Kennedy! Talk about wishful thinking!
And then there's Robert J. Groden, who thinks that as many as TEN
shots were fired at the President, coming from a whole host of
different locations in Dealey Plaza, both front and rear (see pages 20
through 40 of Groden's "The Killing Of A President" for more details
about Bob's overkill fantasy theory).
Here's what really happened with respect to those "Grassy Knoll"
witnesses (almost as assuredly as grass is green):
The 33% of "Knoll" earwitnesses quite obviously heard the ONLY shots
that were really fired in the Plaza on 11/22/63--which were the three
that came from Lee Harvey Oswald's rifle on the sixth floor of the
Book Depository--but the acoustics in the Plaza played some tricks on
those witnesses' ears, and they thought that ALL of the shots (from
the TSBD) had come from a point FURTHER WEST in Dealey Plaza, nearer
the Grassy Knoll.
But the KEY is that only FIVE out of 104 witnesses thought shots came
from MULTIPLE DIRECTIONS. And please note that there wasn't a single
witness in the Plaza (that I am aware of anyway) who said they thought
shots came from THREE different places, which is really what you would
expect at least A FEW of the witnesses to hear if Oliver Stone's
"triangulation of crossfire" THREE-SHOOTER assassination plot had
really taken place on November 22nd.
And even if you want to think John McAdams has deliberately chosen
only the witnesses who might help his "LN" conclusions in the above
pie chart, there are other very similar earwitness charts available to
study, such as the ones below:
The HSCA's witness tabulation reveals that a mere 4.0% of the
witnesses thought they heard shots coming from more than one location:
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/images/shots2.jpg
And Stewart Galanor, a conspiracy theorist(!), put together an
interesting "witness" study. Although Galanor inflates the number of
"Knoll" earwitnesses to a larger percentage than it probably is (as
did Josiah Thompson in his study), the key to his chart (once again)
is the amazingly-LOW percentage of people who claimed to hear shot
coming from "TWO DIRECTIONS".
Galanor has a mere 4.6% of the witnesses occupying the "Two
Directions" section of this pie chart (and please note, again, there's
not even a slice of this pie reserved for "Three Directions" at all;
so, once again, Oliver Stone's three-gunmen theory seems to be having
a difficult time taking hold):
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/images/shots5.jpg
And Josiah Thompson, another conspiracy believer, only has 6.3% of the
witnesses falling into the "Two Directions" category:
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/images/shots1.jpg
Here's what John McAdams says on his website (source pages linked
below):
"This "two locations" number is exceedingly important. There is
overwhelming evidence that at least some shots were fired from behind
the motorcade. Several witnesses saw a shooter, or at least a gun in
the sixth floor sniper's nest window. The medical evidence is clear
that both Kennedy and Connally were hit from behind (regardless of
whether either was also hit from the front). Once we understand that
at least some shots came from behind, it is hard to see how shots
could also have come from the Grassy Knoll without more witnesses
reporting shots from more than one direction. It begins to look like
some were confused about THE direction of the shots." -- John McAdams
Source Links:
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/shots.htm
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/earwitnesses.htm
========================================
THE IMPORTANT AND OFTEN-OVERLOOKED WITNESS STATISTICS (ORIGINAL
ARTICLE FROM 2006):
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.conspiracy.jfk/msg/7b06a89bd4042363
http://DavidVonPein.blogspot.com
========================================
David Von Pein
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.assassination.jfk/browse_thread/thread/6d03bff28342a792
>>> "McAdams cherry picks. Anyone with any doubt he puts in one camp and anyone in any doubt who is in his camp he counts." <<<
John McAdams' students did the research for that "Definitive
Earwitness Poll". So, are McAdams' students part of the "conspiracy"
and "cover-up" now, Burgundy?
Quoting from Prof. McAdams' website:
"In an attempt to correct the deficiencies of earlier
tabulations, I [John McAdams] enlisted several students in my class on
the Kennedy assassination to go through the testimony with a "fine
tooth comb." I then reviewed the assessments the students had made,
and changed a handful that I thought to be inaccurate."
Also: any "I'M NOT SURE" witnesses were thrown out of the poll
altogether. They didn't get any pie slice at all.
>>> "Stewart Galanor's analysis is vastly superior." <<<
And yet even Galanor only has a mere 4.6% of the witnesses in the "Two
Directions" camp.
Doesn't that extremely low percentage of "Two Direction" witnesses
seem the slightest bit odd to ANY conspiracy theorists--IF the type of
multi-gun, multi-directional assassination plot took place as
purported by people like Oliver Stone and Bob Groden, etc.?
aeffects
<snip the nutter's nonsense>
No advertising you chicken smelling loon!
David Von Pein
JOE ELLIOTT SAID:
>>> "I cannot believe that no confused witness would guess three shots." <<<
DVP SAID:
Why would ANYBODY simply "guess" about hearing a PRECISE AND DISTINCT
number of gunshots?
AFAIK, there were zero witnesses who said something like this --- "I
heard three shots. But, oh, btw, that was really just a guess. I
really don't know how many shots I heard, maybe it was 2, maybe 3,
maybe 4. But I'm going to say that I heard exactly three shots--just
to be nice."
That's silly.