Paul McCaghren is a private investigator and private security consultant in Dallas, Texas. Previously, Paul was a member of the Dallas Police force from 1953 until 1974. Paul worked on the shooting case of Oswald who was killed by Jack Ruby during Oswald's infamous prison transfer, and on the death of J.D. Tippett, Oswald's arresting officer after the assasination of J.F. Kennedy in Dallas in 1963.
Charles: What is your present occupation, Paul?
Paul: I am a private investigator and private security consultant in Dallas, Texas.
C: Previously, you were a member of the Dallas Police Force, were you not?
P: Yes, I was.
C: During what period of time?
P: From 1953 until 1974.
C: And during that period of time what was your rank?
P: I worked from patrolman to detective in 1958. I was a lieutenant from 1960 to 1965 or 1966. I was a captain from 1966 to 1968. I was the director of intelligence division in 1969. I was an assistant chief from 1970 to 1972. In 1972, I began to work my way back down. I was a captain when I retired in 1974.
C: You were working during some pretty turbulent times back then?
P: Yes I was. I was one of five people placed to investigate the shooting in City Hall. I helped conduct that investigation.
C: This was, of course, the shooting of Oswald by Jack Ruby?
P: Yes. And I was on a team of investigators concerning the president’s assassination. You’ve heard about the fourth shot? They spent 25 million dollars to find out there wasn’t a fourth shot.
C: What level of education do you hold?
P: Well, actually, I didn’t finish high school. I got my G.E.D. The police department was gracious enough to send me to school in my off time and then on to police academy.
C: What did you find most rewarding about your career?
P: Oh, I enjoyed the accomplishments. It was very rewarding work. You put a lot of bad people in jail and you help out a lot of good people.
C: Yes, we’ve been studying about how the police force now is more about service in the community.
P: Well see, that’s a problem, now. My grandson just graduated the force and he’ll come to me and say, ”Grand dad, all we do is go around answering dog barking calls, code violations, things of that nature”.
C: What were your least favorite duties?
P: When I was assistant chief ward of internal affairs. And I did not like internal affairs. It was kind of hard for me to give a guy three days off for smashing someone in the mouth, when I’d done the same thing myself.
C: (Laughs) Understood.
C: If you don’t mind answering this question. It’s kind of on a personal level. What are your thoughts on capital punishment?
P: It doesn’t work.
C: Why not?
P: Because of delays. If you want to make it work, you have to have a speedy trial, a fair trial and carry out the punishment while it’s still fresh on people’s minds.
C: I read that the average stay right now is 10.2 years on death row.
P: Yes, sounds right. If you want to hurt somebody, send them in for the rest of their life.
C: Without the chance of parole?
P: Well, there’s a little kicker there. You have to be paroled after forty something years. People argue, ‘well, we can execute them and save the taxpayers money’. But what we do is put money in these court appointed attorneys. These fucking Mexicans come up here and kill each other and we give them court appointed attorneys, put them in jail and they stay there several years. And their attorney is running the clock all the time. Tens of thousands of dollars are being billed. Collectively it runs into the millions. It costs 43 thousand dollars a year to keep an inmate in the penitentiary. It’s not a deterrent at all, never has been and never will be. I was always for capital punishment, but seeing how it works nowadays, I think it’s a joke. It’s a travesty of justice.
C; What advice would you give to someone interested in pursuing a career in criminal justice?
P: I’d go for it. I’d go for it and in a cache I would learn to speak Spanish.
C: I’ve actually got that on my list of things to do. (Laughs) I know all the hiring now requires you to speak Spanish, especially in this area of the country.
P: Yeah, my grandson was required to be able to speak high school level Spanish before he could graduate in his police academy.
Do you recall any ethical dilemmas associated with your job?
P: Yeah, there were a few.
C: Can you name maybe a couple?
P: Well, I’m in front of a bad guy who had committed some horrible offense, I didn’t mind beating the shit out of him to get a confession out of him. That’s not ethical. You’re not supposed to do that. Well, you know, I really didn’t beat the shit out of him, just slapped him around some.
C: Just turning up the heat a little?
P: Yeah, instead of using the word beating, let’s just say putting a little pressure on him. (Smiles)
C: Yeah, well you know we give officers lots of leeway to get a confession.
P: Not anymore! You can’t do it like that anymore. That was back in the fifties. I’ve caught many bad guys. This one was with this girl, he had raped this young girl, this child, and I did what I had to do, but you can’t do it that way anymore.
C: Due process, right? Lots of civil libertarians are out there now.
P: Well, we know that now and know not to do it that way. It was just a different era back then.
C: You can still, though manipulate a suspect, you can lie to him to try to get a confession.
P: Well, people confess a crime for two reasons. One is because they fear you, and two, because they respect you. I know how to gain respect. I can put you down. As big as you are and as tough as you are, I can put you down. But these days, these young officers don’t know how to do it. They confuse criminal interrogation with witness questioning. The people that are teaching this are teaching witness interviewing. It’s a whole different ballgame, because one, interviewing is where you make a person comfortable. Interrogation is where you get their attention to make sure they know you are in control.
If you ever do an interrogation and you bring that person in to interrogate, you be in control. Do not have anything on your desk like a cup or sunglasses or anything there that makes you look like a human being. Okay? Don’t have any distractions.
Now here’s a danger in interrogating someone. You take a person with a low I.Q. You can manipulate him into confessing something because he thinks he’s pleasing you. For example, I’ve seen old detectives take a person with a very low I.Q. and they’ll use this old ploy, they’ll say, “Man, I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of all this questioning. I wanna just go home and take a hot bath and put this all behind me”. On and on and on. Well, the guy confesses, but he didn’t do it. Just feels sorry for the guy. Nowadays, you can’t do those sorts of things. In fact, they stopped all that when I was still on the force. So you don’t want to entrap a guy into making a false confession.
C: Thank you. Another question on a personal level. Was being married and raising a family affected by the kind of work you did? Or were you able to separate the two?
P: No, not really, nobody can. I know both my daughters would tell you I didn’t spend enough time with them. I was so wrapped up in police work and in going to school that I robbed them of that time. You can really get wrapped up in getting hot on a case. Hell, when I was an assistant chief, I formed a group consisting of personnel in nineteen states investigating a group that called themselves the Dixie Mafia. So I was really involved in that and going to school on the weekends, and I found myself drinking more, staying out more, and just not doing my family a service at all.
C: Had you ever pursued or thought about doing anything other than police work?
P: No, but after twenty years, you really need to get out of it.
C: Because?
P: Because there’s a danger in staying in too long. The dangerous part is about the people you are associated with, those hookers, those hijackers, and your fellow officers, which just reinforce your thoughts about that. We didn’t have enough sense in those days to back up and look at things objectively and realize how cynical and hardened you can become.
C: What do you think was the main reason you entered the field of police work?
P: Well, I was in the Marines and most of what you did is policing or guard work. And I had a football coach who was a patrolman, and he used to tell us stories of what went on while on duty.
C: Is the criminal justice as you see it today fair?
P: No, it’s not fair, because the higher up in society you are, the less chance you have of being punished.
C: Last question, Paul. What book or books have you read in the last year?
P: On what?
C: On anything. Are you a big reader?
P: Oh, yeah. Right now I am reading a book by Bernard Cornwell called Sharpe’s Company. Bernard Cornwell is one of the best writers on old warfare from the 1800’s on the English war. When Napoleon attacked Portugal and Spain. I like that. I’m also reading one right now on the history during 430 B.C. of soldiers in Afghanistan. Those people over there were ruthless. Shit, Man, they don’t give up on anything. No mercy. And they would just as well kill their whole family as kill you. Historical novels, I love them.
C: Thanks. That question I threw in just to give me a little psychological insight into where your interests lie. Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions. It was very generous of you.
P: You’re quite welcomed. I enjoyed it.
End of interview
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