I worked in TV news in those days, and I’m telling you what happened and what we reporters and cameramen did with the police radio information.

I used the term “scanners”, but what we actually had in 1963 were radios that had crystals that were tuned to police radio channels. They didn’t actually scan multiple channels as scanners do today.

In New Orleans where I worked at the time, the police radio dispatcher would occasionally say that the following transmitted information was not to be mentioned by the news media. That was fairly rare, and I figured it had something to do with some undercover investigations.

We often would sit by the police radio in the newsroom, waiting for something to happen, then if we heard of a big robbery, car wreck, or fire, we would jump in our news cars and take off. Our regular news broadcasts were only 15 minutes long in those days, and we rarely broke into regular network programs for local news bulletins, except during extremely big events, such as hurricanes and nearby tornados. But if we had had a presidential assassination in our town, we would have done like the Dallas stations did and gone on the air full time on 11/22, broadcasting every bit of information we could get, including information directly from the police radios.

News reporters in Dallas were getting the descriptions of the shooter in Dealey Plaza from the eyewitnesses within a few minutes after the assassination. This is well known to professional JFK researchers. The Dallas police radio transmissions of that time are available on CDs today.

The first police radio transmission about the shots coming from the Book Depository went out at about 12:34:41

The first police field unit transmission about the description of the Dealey Plaza – Book Depository shooter went out over police radio Channel 2 at about 12:44:11. Here’s the transcript:

“The wanted person in this is a slender white male about 30, 5 foot 10, 165, and carrying what looked like a 30-30 or some type of a Winchester.”

Starting at about 12:44:48, the following transmission went out over both Dallas police radio channels at the same time, spoken by the Channel 2 dispatcher:

“Attention all squads. Attention all squads. The suspect in the shooting at Elm and Houston is reported to be an unknown white male, approximately 30, slender build, height 5 feet 10 inches, weight 165 pounds, reported to be armed with what is thought to be a 30 caliber rifle. Attention all squads. The suspect from Elm and Houston is reported to be an unknown white male, about 30, slender build, 5 feet 10 inches tall, 165 pounds, armed with what is thought to be a 30-30 rifle. No further description at this time or information. 12:45, KKB364 Dallas.”

That transmission ended at about 12:45:30

This description was immediately put out by several Dallas commercial radio stations. Not long after Tippit was shot, the TV and radio news, including the networks, reported that a policeman had been shot in Dallas and the police were looking for the shooter. This was on network TV before Oswald was arrested, and I remember hearing it on NBC network radio before Oswald was arrested.