No More Silence: An Oral History of the Assassination of President Kennedy

Marrion L. Baker

MARRION L. BAKER Solo Motor cycle Officer Dallas Police Department "What attracted my attention was this huge bunch ofpigeons thatflew off; fifty to a hundred of them were flying off the top of this building. I just knew that it had to be close to them or they wouldn't be disturbed like that... " Patrolman Baker was born in the small town of Blum located in Hill County, Texas. After moving to Dallas in 1940, Baker later graduated from W.H. Adamson High School, located in Oak Cliff only a few blocks from where Officer J.D. Tippit allegedly was slain by Oswald. Baker worked at a variety ofjobs after high school, then joined the Dallas Police Department in 1954. After nearly two years in Radio Patrol, he joined the Solo Motorcycle Division and had ridden motorcycles for seven years prior to the Kennedy motorcade. I think that morning we were already assigned locations when we arrived at headquarters. They didn't want anyone around the Presidential car, so they told us to follow in behind the news media. We didn't know whose instructions those were; it might have been from the Secret Service. I know Johnson didn't want anyone around him, especially a motorcycle officer. He never liked that motorcycle noise beside his car. In fact, he didn't like police anyway. As we made it all the way from Love Field to downtown, it was a pretty routine motorcade till we got to Main and Houston, then we cut over north on Houston. Most of the front of the 124 NO MORE SILENCE motorcade had already turned west on Elm Street down toward the triple underpass. At the time, I was approximately 150 feet south of Elm Street traveling north on Houston on the right hand side of the street. Suddenly, I heard these three shots. It was my impression that they came directly in front of me and high. I just assumed that they came from the top of the Texas School Book Depository Building. The shots were very distinct. The first two were pretty evenly spaced, and the last was a little bit closer. It was kind of BOOM! ... BOOM! ... BOOM! I wasn't sure what kind of gun it was. I just heard three distinct shots. What attracted my attention was this huge bunch of pigeons that flew off, fifty to a hundred of them were flying off the top of this building. I just knew that it had to be close to them or they wouldn't be disturbed like that. I immediately rode to the corner of Houston and Elm and parked my motorcycle. At that time, there was just mass confusion down there. I remember one woman standing on the corner screaming, "Oh, they shot that man! Oh, they shot that man!" I didn't know what man they had shot. I was assuming. So I ran into the building, and at that time, it seemed like everybody else was, too. Most of them that were standing in front of it were going into the Texas School Book Depository Building. When I got there, I asked which way were the stairs or the elevator, and this man stepped up and said, "Officer, come on! I'm the building supervisor." So he led us into the back, and we tried to get the elevators, the freight elevators. For some reason he couldn't get them down so he said, "Come on, we'll take the stairway!" So we started up the stairwell at the back. I later learned that this was Mr. [Roy] Truly. Mr. Truly was ahead of me. As he had turned the corner and started on around toward the third floor stairwell, I happened to look over in front of me, and about twenty feet away there was a doorway with a small glass. I caught a movement behind the glass, so I went over, opened up the door, and saw this man standing approximately twenty feet in this next room. At that time, I didn't know if it was a coffee room or what. By this time, I had drawn my pistol on the first flight of stairs. I called to him, "Hey, you!," and he started turning around toward me. He didn't have MAR RIO N L. B A K E R, MOT 0 R eye L E 125 time to respond...