Jim Leavelle

Leavelle was born and raised in Red River County, Texas. In 1937, Leavelle joined the Civilian Conservation Corps. Following graduation from high school, Leavelle joined the United States Navy in 1939 (during World War II) and served as a sailor on board the USS Whitney; he was on board the ship during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. In April 1942, the Whitney left Pearl Harbor and headed for the South Pacific Ocean to support operations there. After being knocked down and seriously injured by a rogue wave, he was evacuated to Oak Knoll Naval Hospital near Oakland, California. In the hospital, he met nurse Taimi Snelma, his wife-to-be. Around the same time, Leavelle left on a medical discharge to take a civilian supply job with the Army Air Force in Southern California.

After World War II ended, Leavelle worked as an auditor for the Veterans Administration until 1950. Leavelle began a career as a homicide detective in the Dallas Police Department in April 1950 and retired in April 1975.

On November 24, 1963, two days after the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald was handcuffed between detectives Leavelle and L. C. Graves as he was being led through the basement of the Dallas Police Headquarters to an armored car for the short trip from the city jail to the county jail. Jack Ruby then stepped from the crowd and fatally shot Oswald at point-blank range.

The tan suit that Leavelle wore on November 24, 1963, is on display at the Sixth Floor Museum.

On March 25, 1964, Leavelle provided testimony to Warren Commission assistant counsel Leon Hubert. He provided additional testimony to assistant counsel Joseph Ball on April 7.

Fifteen years after the assassination, Leavelle appeared as himself in the 1978 made-for-television movie, Ruby and Oswald.

In December 1992, while demonstrating how L. C. Graves grabbed Ruby’s gun in an attempt to stop him from firing, Leavelle accidentally shot researcher and photographer Bob Porter in the arm, using the same model gun Ruby had used. Porter recovered at Parkland Hospital, the same facility where Kennedy, Oswald, and Ruby either died or were pronounced dead.

In a 2006 interview, Leavelle said that he was the first to interrogate Oswald after his arrest; he said that he joked with Oswald before the transfer, saying "Lee, if anybody shoots at you, I hope they're as good a shot as you are," meaning that the person would hit Oswald instead of Leavelle. Oswald smiled and said, "You're being melodramatic. Nobody's going to shoot at me."

In November 2011, Leavelle lost an eye after a serious fall, after which he wore a glass eye.

In 2013, the Dallas Police Department's Detective of the Year Award was named in Leavelle's honor.

After Leavelle's wife Taimi died in 2014, he lived in Garland, Texas. Leavelle died from a heart attack following hip surgery on August 29, 2019.

James Leavelle, retired Dallas police officer who escorted Lee Harvey Oswald, to celebrate 90th birthday

James Leavelle was handcuffed to Lee Harvey Oswald that November morning when Jack Ruby lunged forward to put one well-placed .38 bullet into the accused...