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

James W. Courson

JAMES W. COURSON Solo Motor cycle Officer Dallas Police Department "We were taught in the Marine Corps on the rifle range to count your shots, then on the police department the same thing on the pistol range: count your shots! That's one reason that I know there were three shots, and they probably came from the same gun..." Jim Courson served in the Marine Corps during the Korean War and joined the Dallas Police Department after his discharge in 1954. Two years later, in 1956, he became a solo motorcycle officer and was assigned to escort the Kennedy motorcade on November 22, 1963. The Kennedy motorcade was much the same as many others which I had escorted. We went to work fairly early that morning and spent a lot of time getting our equipment shined and polished since we always wanted to look sharp on those escorts. At that time, we were riding Harley-Davidsons, which was a tradition with the police department. We were given our assignments that morning through our sergeant which had been coordinated between the Secret Service and the police department. It had been raining that morning, so we had to wear our yellow slicker rain gear out to the airport. Just as we pulled in to Love Field and just as the plane arrived, the sun came through making for a beautiful day. We then stripped off the rain gear and put them in our saddle bags. 128 NO MORE SILENCE After the President had met with many in the large crowd, we all left the airport, made a left tum on Mockingbird Lane, then a right on Lemmon Avenue. There were people scattered all along the route. In the early stages of the escort, they were not big crowds, but as the sirens were heard, businesses let their employees out and it appeared to be a good tum out. It was all fairly routine for us. The motorcycle officers were concerned with the traffic, with side streets and driveways, and making sure that no one ran out into the motorcade. Tactical officers and patrol officers were stationed at all the intersections including all railroad trestles and overpasses throughout the entire route. There was a lot of security out that day. No traffic was moving except for the motorcade. The motor jockeys in the escort were all experienced and were graduates of the Motorcycle Training School. When they got through with you, you were ready for just about anything. The newer, less experienced men were stationed further back in the escort. The ones in the front and around the President's car were the more experienced. The route itself was fairly straight, with the exception of a few turns, and was designed for convenience and quickness. It would have been shorter and safer to have gone a more direct route between Love Field and the Trade Mart, but Kennedy wanted to be exposed to as many people as possible, so the route included the downtown area which was out of the way. By the time we arrived in the downtown area at Harwood and Main, many of the City Hall employees and policemen came out to watch. On Main Street, the crowds were very heavy, three or four deep. All was going well until we had just made a right tum from Main onto Houston Street due to the limousine having to make the sharp left tum up ahead on Elm which slowed the motorcade. We had to stop, thus I was sitting on my motorcycle in the left lane on Houston looking more or less at the Book Depository. That's when I heard the shots! I couldn't tell exactly from where the shots came because of the echo pattern, but there were three very distinct shots. The first two were fairly close together then there was more space between the second and third. I could tell that they came from JAMES W. COURSON, MOTORCYCLE 129 one location, but really I was concentrating more on the President and seeing if they needed help up ahead. People near me were just astonished: there were surprised, shocked looks. They didn't know what had happened. I looked to my left and tried to see down across Dealey Plaza what was going on then sped to catch up with the President's car. At that point, we forgot about the rest of the...