Question #152565. Asked by
elvislennon.
Last updated Oct 05 2026.
Originally posted Oct 05 2026 1:59 AM.
James T. Tague was an unintended victim in the Kennedy assassination, hit by a stray bullet while stuck in traffic on the way to pick up a luncheon date. "I was standing on the triple underpass at the time and was wounded by a fragment that bounced off the pavement," Tague, now 77, told ABC News. When he heard the first shot, Tague thought it was a firecracker. "It certainly didn't sound like a rifle shot. It was a loud cannon-type sound and it stung me on my right cheek. I wondered what had just happened and a man in a suit who turned out to be a deputy sheriff in plain clothes ran up and asked what had happened."Across the street people were sobbing, 'His head exploded.' The policeman said 'Whose head?' It was the president's. Then he looked at me and said, 'You have blood on your face.'" Tague went down to the police station where he gave a statement to homicide detectives. At the same time, they were bringing in a man in handcuffs who would be charged with the shooting death of Officer J.D. Tippet, Lee Harvey Oswald. "That night I went home and wrote down everything I remembered from that day," said Tague, who later worked in auto management testified before the Warren Commission. "Fifty years later, it's still hard to accept."
James Tague was a car salesman turned author who became the third man injured in the shooting of President John Kennedy and Governor John Connally on November 22, 1963. On the day of the presidential assassination in Dallas, Tague, a 27-year-old local, was on his way to lunch with a "cute redhead" when he came to a halt amid the heavy traffic on Dealey Plaza. Unaware of the approaching cavalcade, he got out of his car and stood at the south kerb of Main Street, to survey the crowd. It was then that he saw the president's limousine turn down Elm Street. The first shot came a moment later. Like many others who later described the event, Tague initially mistook the sound for a firecracker. When a further two rifle shots followed, however, the former United States airman felt something sting him in the face and immediately took cover. After a few seconds he felt it was safe to emerge, and approached a deputy sheriff, Eddie "Buddy" Walthers. "You have blood there on your cheek," Walthers told him. The two men examined the surrounding area and found a clear scar in the road, which suggested the impact of a bullet. They concluded that debris from the shot must have hit Tague as it ricocheted off the kerb, missing Kennedy's car entirely.
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