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Image of hallway outside Homocide & Robbery Bureau at Dallas Police Department
Image of hallway outside Homocide & Robbery Bureau at Dallas Police Department

Image of hallway outside Homocide & Robbery Bureau at Dallas Police Department

Object number1994.003.0029.0002
Date11/22/1963
ClassificationsPhotographs
Photographer Dallas Morning News Photographer
ObjectNegative (b&w)
Credit LineTom C. Dillard Collection, The Dallas Morning News/The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza
MediumFilm
Dimensions2 3/16 × 2 3/16 in. (5.6 × 5.6 cm)
DescriptionOriginal black and white negative by a Dallas Morning News photographer. The image shows reporters in the third floor hallway outside the Homicide & Robbery Bureau office at Dallas police headquarters. A uniformed police officer guards the door to the office. The man in the trench coat is Dallas Times Herald reporter Jim Lehrer.
Curatorial Commentary
It is not clear which Dallas Morning News photographer took this image. Jack Beers, Tom Dillard and Bill Winfrey are the photographers who were present when the photograph was taken. It could have been any of them. - Stephanie Allen-Givens, Collections and Exhibits Manager
In their 1964 Report, the Warren Commission described the third floor of Dallas police headquarters like this: "The focal center of the Police and Courts Building during Oswald's detention was the third floor, which housed the main offices of the Dallas Police Department. The public elevators on this floor opened into a lobby midpoint of a corridor that extended along the length of the floor for about 140 feet. At one end of this 7-foot-wide corridor were the offices occupied by Chief of Police Jesse E. Curry and his immediate subordinates; at the other end was a small pressroom that could accommodate only a handful of reporters. Along this corridor were other police offices, including those of the major detective bureaus. Between the pressroom and the lobby was the complex of offices belonging to the homicide and robbery bureau, headed by Capt. J. Will Fritz." Warren Commission Exhibit No. 2175 is a third floor layout of Dallas police headquarters. -- Stephen Fagin, Curator  
The reporter in the center, wearing the tan coat, is the late Jim Lehrer, who was then a reporter with the Dallas Times Herald. Earlier that day, Lehrer had covered the arrival of the Kennedys at Dallas Love Field. Lehrer would go on to become an Emmy Award-winning broadcast journalist, best known for the long-running PBS NewsHour program and for moderating twelve presidential debates between 1988 and 2012. Lehrer recorded an oral history with The Sixth Floor Museum on November 1, 2013. -- Stephen Fagin, Curator