Man Who Discovered Tippit Awarded Certificate of Merit

Dallas Police Chief David Brown honored the man who discovered the body of slain police officer J.D. Tippit and reported it just 45 minutes after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

Temple F. Bowley saw Tippit dead on an Oak Cliff street on Nov. 22, 1963. He used the police radio to report the shooting. Tippit's killer was Lee Harvey Oswald, the man also accused of killing Kennedy. Officers quickly arrested Oswald at the Texas Theatre.

47 years later, Brown welcomed 82-year-old Bowley into his office and present him with a Citizen's Certificate of Merit.

Bowley also spent several years in the 1950s moonlighting as a doorman for Dallas nightclub operator Jack Ruby, who shot Oswald to death on live television two days after the assassination.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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