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Officer

J. D. Tippit

Dallas Police Department — Dallas, TX

Assassinations →Veteran → Felonious

End of Watch November 22, 1963

Age 39

Tour of Duty 11 yrs 3 mo

Badge 848

The Vigil Panel 217 · Column 2 · Line 21 ›

Gender Male

Incident Media Service Shadow Box The Sacrifice Military Memorials 1 Also Remembered Department 94

Shadow Box

J. D. Tippit

Officer

Dallas Police Department

European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal

Incident

Officer J.D. Tippit was shot and killed while questioning the assassin of President John F. Kennedy at Tenth and Patton Streets. At approximately 1:14 pm, 45 minutes after President Kennedy was shot, Officer Tippit stopped the suspect, Lee Harvey Oswald, who was on foot and fit the general description of the assassin that was being broadcast by the Dallas police radio. After being summoned by Officer Tippit, Oswald came over to the passenger side of the patrol car, where they spoke through an open window. After a brief conversation, Officer Tippit got out of his car, and as he was walking toward the front of his patrol car, Oswald suddenly shot him three times at point-blank range with a .38 caliber revolver. After Officer Tippit fell, he was shot in the head by Oswald, which proved to be the fatal shot. A citizen who witnessed the shooting used the police radio in Officer Tippit's patrol car to alert other officers of the shooting. Oswald was apprehended hiding in a movie theater after he was seen by an alert citizen who witnessed the shooting of Officer Tippit. Oswald was shot and killed two days later by Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby while in police custody. Officer Tippit was a United States Army WWII veteran and bronze star recipient and served with the Dallas Police Department for 11 years. He is survived by his wife, daughter, two sons, parents, four brothers, two sisters, and his grandmother. In January 1964, Officer Tippit was posthumously awarded the Medal of Valor from the National Police Hall of Fame and also received the Police Medal of Honor, the Police Cross, and the Citizen's Traffic Commission Award of Heroism. He is buried in Laurel Land Memorial Park in Dallas, Texas.

Assassinations

He is one of 1 officers honored here.

Survivors

His wife Marie and their children Charles, Brenda and Curtis.

Biography

A Dallas patrolman for eleven years, badge 848, and before that a paratrooper.

He was born near Annona in Red River County, the eldest of seven. The initials were his whole name - people took them for Jefferson Davis, but they stood for nothing. He left school after the tenth grade and was raised Baptist and stayed one.

He went into the Army in July 1944 and volunteered for the airborne. He reached the 513th Parachute Infantry in January 1945, not long after the regiment had been cut to pieces in the Ardennes, and in March he jumped the Rhine in Operation Varsity. He was given the Bronze Star, and a Purple Heart for being hit.

Afterwards he sold stoves, fitted for Sears, tried to farm and raise cattle at Lone Star and could not make it pay. He joined the Dallas Police in July 1952. He was cited twice for bravery: in 1956 a man he had stopped put a pistol to his head and pulled the trigger, and the safety was on.

He was earning four hundred and ninety dollars a month and working two other jobs - a barbecue place on Friday and Saturday nights, a cinema on Sundays. He had a wife, Marie, and three children.

On the twenty-second of November he was working beat 78, his own patch in south Oak Cliff. At a quarter to one he was sent toward the centre of the city with everyone else. At about ten past one he pulled alongside a man walking on East Tenth Street who answered the description going out over the radio, and got out of his car. He was shot four times and died where he fell. He was thirty-nine.

His funeral was held on the same day as the president's. Two thousand people came, eight hundred of them police. The nation sent his family six hundred and forty-seven thousand dollars; the man who had filmed the assassination from Elm Street sent twenty-five thousand of it.

In Our Keeping

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Added to badge.nw: August 2, 2026
Last updated: September 30, 2026

Honored here by 1 tribute.

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Also honored at requiem.nw, salute.nw — U.S. Army. One record, 3 gates. J. is one person.

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Tributes

I served 1985 to 1993. You served too, before the badge - different uniform, same idea. You go where you are sent and you do not get to pick the call.
Officer Tippit gave the Dallas Police Department 11 years.
Thank you for your service to the Dallas community, and for your service before it. Gone but never to be forgotten.
Rest easy, brother.

— S. Vincent Anthony, U.S. Army 1985-1993

Agency

Department Dallas Police Department

Type Police Department

Location Dallas, Collin County, TX

Platform Identity dpd.dallas.tx.us.gov.nw

Service Record

End of Watch November 22, 1963

Tour of Duty 11 yrs 3 mo

Age 39

Badge Number 848

Gender Male

Born Annona, Texas

Awards & Decorations

Bronze Star Medal

Purple Heart

European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal

Incident Details

Cause Felonious

Weapon Handgun

Military Service

J. D. Tippit served in the U.S. Army (1944â1946) before joining law enforcement.

View full service record on salute.nw →

The Sacrifice · Felonious

J. is one of 15,743 officers killed feloniously in the United States, 57.1% of the 27,552 remembered there.

34,103 officers are remembered on this memorial. Each number below is one of them.

Compare against

Time

In 1963, 71 officers in the United States were killed feloniously, the 100th heaviest of 213 years on record. The heaviest was 1921, with 248.

Every year on record · United States

Who

J. was 39. Of the 14,219 killed feloniously in the United States whose age is recorded, half were between 31 and 47; the middle age was 38. J. had served 11.2 years; the middle length of service was 6 years.

Age at death

Where he stood among them

Age by years of service

III

When

November holds 8.1% of these deaths in the United States; December holds the most, 9.4%. Fridays: 14.3%.

By month

By day of the week

How

Felonious deaths account for 57.1% of all 27,552 deaths in the United States, the most common cause. The weapon recorded was handgun, in 23.4% of these deaths.

Every cause

Weapons recorded