Jack Ruby Shoots Lee Harvey Oswald

The image was captured by Dallas Times Herald photographer Robert H. Jackson and it won the 1964 Pulitzer Prize for Photography.

Jackson took the photograph in the basement of the Dallas jail at the exact moment when Lee Harvey Oswald was shot.

Another reporter, Jack Beers of The Dallas Morning News, took a similar photo a split-second before Ruby fired the shot.

In addition to the Pulitzer Prize, the Jackson image also won awards from the Texas Headliners Club and Sigma Delta Chi.

[4] The police had notified news agencies that the scheduled time to move Oswald was 9:15 a.m. so Jackson arrived before 9:00 a.m. to get ready.

[3] There was competition in the newspaper business and Jack Beers, who worked for The Dallas Morning News, captured a similar image which was taken six-tenths of a second before Jackson's.

[8] Beers's image showed Jack Ruby stepping forward with his 38-caliber Colt Cobra revolver just before the shot that killed Oswald.

[3] When authorities notified the reporters in the police headquarters basement that Oswald was coming, Jackson got his Nikon S3 35 mm camera ready.

[5] Jackson had been to the Dallas Police headquarters basement for prisoner transfers many times so he knew where to stand in order to get the best photograph.

[11] The image Jackson captured was the exact moment a bullet from Ruby's gun entered Oswald's body.

[11] In 2019, The New York Times described the image by saying, "The shooting, with Mr. Oswald's pained grimace and Detective Leavelle's stricken glower, was chillingly captured".