Mark Lane and J. C. Price
- Fred Litwin
- 2 days ago
- 8 min read
Updated: 1 day ago
Price heard a total of five shots, and then "as much as five minutes later another one."
Note that Price was quite far away -- on the roof of the Terminal Annex Bldg. in Dealey Plaza, over two hundred yards away from the railroad yards.
Here is the location of Price:
Price saw someone "running towards the passenger cars on the railroad siding after the volley of shots." But he doesn't say where he was running from. And he concludes his statement that the man "had something in his hand. I couldn't be sure but it may have been a head piece."
So, the person may have been carrying his hat. And lots of people were running right after the shots, including S. M. Holland.
He told the FBI that he "saw nothing pertinent."
Mr. Price was interviewed for Mark Lane's film, Rush to Judgment, in 1966. Here is an excerpt from a transcript: (58:46)
Mark Lane: We are in the basement of the Terminal Annex Building on the northeast corner [sic: it's the southeast corner] of Dealey Plaza. We're here with Mr. J. C. Price, the engineer in charge of the building. Mr. Price, where were you at the time that the presidential motorcade drove through Dealey Plaza?
J. C. Price: Well, I went up to the roof and where I'd get a better view of the [passenger] cabin.
Mark Lane: Is this where you were sitting on November 22nd, Mr. Price?
J. C. Price: Yes, sir,
Mark Lane: Right here?
J. C. Price: Right here on this spot.
Mark Lane: And where did you think you heard the shots come from?
J. C. Price: From behind the overpass over there -- the triple overpass. That's where I thought the shots were coming from.
Mark Lane: And where did you see the man running?
J. C. Price: Over behind that wooden fence, past the cars and over behind the Texas Depository Building.
Mark Lane: Did you give that information to the Dallas Sheriff's Department on the very day of the assassination?
J. C. Price: Yes, I did. I'd say in about 30 minutes after the assassination.
Mark Lane: Were you ever called as a witness by the Warren Commission?
J. C. Price: No, sir, no sir.
Mark Lane: I show you this map published by the Warren Commission of the Dealey Plaza area and ask you if you would mark on it where you thought the shots came from.
J. C. Price: Yes, sir.
Mark Lane: That's just behind the wooden fence where it joins the overpass. Is that correct?
J. C. Price: That is correct.
Mark Lane: We're now here, more than two years after the assassination. Now, where do you think the shots came from on November 22nd?
J. C. Price: Well, I can't be sure. It seems that, from all information that's been gathered, that the shots came from the Texas Book Depository. But I can't hardly
believe that, although I never did look over there at the building, But really I think that the shots came from that direction. Seems that everything pointed to that fact that they came from the Book Depository Building. But I can't buy that right now. That's about it.
Lane doesn't ask Price here what the man was carrying. But Lane did ask Price about that, but he cut it out of the film:
Price said the man could have been carrying almost anything, "because I couldn't see that well enough to detect.":
That wasn't quite good enough, so Lane tried again later in the interview and got what he wanted:
Mr. Price appears a few minutes later for a second time in the film. Here is an excerpt from a transcript: (1:02:09)
Mark Lane: Mr. Price, did you hear any shots?
J. C. Price: Yes, I heard five shots. I counted them, and I think I counted them accurately. Three shots, one volley, and about two seconds, two more from the same gun, and there was not echoes.
Mark Lane: Are you certain there were five shots?
J. C. Price: I am certain.
Mark Lane: On -- what occasion did you have to count the shots?
J. C. Price: Well, I knew what it was all about and what they were trying to do, so the first thing popped in my mind was to count the shots to see how many it would take to do what they wanted to do. And I wasn't excited. I was in no danger myself, and I knew what it was all about, so I don't think I was excited, and I don't think I'm mistaken about the amount of shots that were fired.
In his statement to the Sheriff's department, Price says there was one volley of five shots, and then five minutes later there was another shot. Now he says there were two volleys -- the first one of three shots and the second with two shots.
Now, let have a look at what Mark Lane wrote in his book, Rush to Judgment: (page 32 -33)
Across the plaza, watching the motorcade from the roof of the Terminal Annex Building, was J. C. Price. In an affidavit which he gave to the Dallas Sheriff’s office 30 minutes after the assassination, Price said he heard a volley of shots. His eye was attracted to the area behind the fence on the grassy knoll. ‘I saw one man run towards the passenger cars on the railroad siding after the volley of shots,’ he stated. The man was about 25 years old and wore khaki-colored trousers. That is consistent with the descriptions given by Bowers and Miss Mercer. Price said that the man fleeing from the assassination scene ‘had something in his hand.’
Although he had signed an affidavit giving important information, Price was not questioned by the Commission or by counsel and no reference to his observations appears in the Report, not even his name.
On March 27, 1966, I interviewed Price on the roof of the Terminal Annex Building. During our filmed and tape-recorded conversation, he furnished a full description of the man he had seen on November 22: ‘I paid particular attention to him. He had on khaki trousers, a white shirt, and I think—I’m pretty sure that his hair was sandy and long. A man appearing about 145 pounds in weight and not too tall. I’d say five-six or seven. He was bare-headed, and he was running very fast, which gave me the suspicion that he was doing the shooting, but I could be mistaken.’ The man ‘was carrying something in his right hand,’ Price added, which ‘could have been a gun.’
Lane: And where did you see the man run ?
Price: Over behind that wooden fence past the cars and over behind the Texas Depository Building.
Lane says nothing about a shot being fired five minutes after the first volley. He completely leaves out the fact that Price initially said the man might have been carrying a head piece. He does include Price saying it "could have been a gun" but leaves out that he also said it could have been a head piece [a hat].
Playboy Magazine interviewed Lane in its February 1967 issue and Lane mentioned J. C. Price:
Mark Lane: And another witness, J. C. Price, a post office employee, told the Dallas sheriff's office, minutes after the assassination, that he was standing on top of the Terminal Annex Building on Dealey Plaza -- overlooking the route of the Presidential motorcade -- when the shots were fired. Price later told me that when he heard gunfire, his attention was instantly drawn to the grassy knoll. In an interview with me, he said he saw a man run from behind the wooden fence and dash across the parking lot, disappearing behind the Book Depository. Price also said the man was carrying something in his hand that could have been a gun.
No mention that Price said the man might have been carrying a hat.
Price's attention was not drawn to the grassy knoll; it was to the triple overpass.
Lane asked him where the shots came from, and Price said they came from the westernmost part of Dealey Plaza -- where the fence meets the underpass. That is not where most conspiracy theorists place a grassy knoll shooter.
The May 1967 issue of Playboy Magazine had letters to the editor in response to Lane's interview. This one, from Professor John Waltz, is relevant to J. C. Price:
Money Quote:
I once confronted Lane with this embarrassing example on Irv Kupcinet's Chicago television program. Lane's only response was that in a 478-page book he couldn't quote everything in the Commission volumes.
What can be said for certain is J.C. Price was never given the opportunity of telling his story in front of the Warren Commission.
Perhaps the real reason that Mr. Price was not called to testify before the Warren Commission was because they already had his statements and recognized that he wasn't a particularly credible witness.
Previous Relevant Blog Posts on Mark Lane
An excellent article from the Dallas Morning News on Lane's witnesses.
Lane cuts out a few of Reynolds' answers.
Sylvia Meagher was incensed at Lane's inclusion of this story in his film.
A good case study in Lane's intellectual dishonesty.
Robert Blakey and the HSCA were very critical of Mark Lane.
Mark Lane and the HSCA.
An interesting anecdote from Mort Sahl's book, Heartland.
Some ads for Lane's film Rush to Judgment.
A Garry Wills opinion piece on Mark Lane.
Navasky tests Lane's book and finds it wanting.
A New York Times profile of Lane and his involvement with Jonestown.
An apt profile.
An opinion piece by Anthony Lewis in the New York Times on Mark Lane and Jonestown.
An opinion piece from the Washington Post
A good opinion piece from the Philadelphia Bulletin.
Meagher tells Labro a story about Mark Lane.
Even a left-wing magazine like The Progressive found Mark Lane hard to take.
Mark Lane's addition to the 1992 edition of Rush to Judgment is eye opening.
Lane tells Dolan about Garrison's amazing evidence.
Lane makes a startling allegation.
A profile from Mother Jones magazine.
Lane and Meagher feuded about a blurb for her book.
A profile from Esquire Magazine.
An article from the Tampa Bay Times.
An Anthony Lewis column on Mark Lane from 1978.
Howard Roffman finds that Mark Lane's scholarship is lacking.
A profile of Mark Lane in Newsweek.
Mark Lane offers to introduce Jim Garrison to a witness that, for $25,000, would tie Jack Ruby with Clay Shaw.
This post has a good case study of how Mark Lane exploited a redaction in a document.
Lane tells the Danish press he knows who killed JFK.
Lane speaks at the Louisiana State Bar Association.
