Why did Tippit stop Oswald?
No one can be one hundred percent certain of the exact reason. The Warren Commission speculated that the description of the suspect wanted in connection with Kennedy’s murder, which was put out over the police radio, led to Tippit stopping Oswald. Conspiracy theorists questioned whether such a meager description (“white male, approximately 30, slender build, height five feet, ten inches, weight 165 pounds”) could have caused Tippit to focus on Oswald rather on the hundreds of other white males who fit that description. In my 1998 book With Malice: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Murder of Officer J.D. Tippit I considered the possibility that Oswald had been walking west on Tenth Street, and upon seeing Tippit’s approaching police car, spun around and began walking east. Such an overtly suspicious action could easily have caused Tippit to stop Oswald and investigate. In With Malice I offered the detailed accounts of Jimmy Burt, William A. Smith, Jack R. Tatum, Helen Markham, and William Scogg
