A RETIRED COP REVISITS THE BEAT SEPTEMBER

C.S. Tull was so disappointed to see Austin’s Barbecue gone. He says he wouldn’t have recognized the corner of Hampton and Illinois. Tull worked this intersection as part of his territory when he was an Oak Cliff beat cop in the 1960s. Now in his 80s, Tull lives out in the country, but he happily drove into town for a photo shoot, which was to be part of an Advocate story that wound up going a different way. Austin’s was friendly to cops, and the old-school Dallas’ finest ate there all the time, Tull says. J.D. Tippit, who was slain by Lee Harvey Oswald following the JFK assassination, worked as a security guard at Austin’s, and Tull says he knew the strapping World War II vet. “I worked with Tippit quite often,” Tull says. “I remember he was a lot of fun to work with.”

On the day of the Kennedy assassination, Tull was assigned to a detail at Market Hall, where the President had been scheduled to speak. Tull had reported at 7 that morning, and he was assigned to secure an area near the kitchen. As the staff began preparing filet mignon and baked potatoes for lunch, Tull says, his stomach began to growl. “We were about starved to death,” he remembers. “We tried to figure out how we were going to get one of those steaks.” They heard the news over a walkie-talkie. “We did get word that J.D. had been shot, but we didn’t know there was any connection,” he says. Once the crowd started leaving Market Hall, the cooks offered those fancy lunches to the police officers. No one ate. Tull says they didn’t know whether there was “an all-out attack on the United States.” There was much confusion and sadness. He worked until about 7 p.m. “They’ll be talking about the Kennedy assassination for as long as this ol’ world still stands,” he says.