Assassination of John F. Kennedy President Kennedy as his motorcade continued down Elm Street. About 80% of the witnesses recalled hearing three shots. A minority of the witnesses recognized the first gunshot they heard as weapon fire, but there was hardly any reaction to the first shot from a majority of the people in the crowd or those riding in the motorcade. Many bystanders later said that they heard what they first thought to either be a firecracker or the backfire of one of the vehicles shortly after the President had begun waving. Although some close witnesses recalled seeing the limousine slow down, nearly stop,
Reactions to the assassination of John F. Kennedy a wealthy Dallas suburb that the pupils of a fourth-grade class, told that the President of the United States had been murdered in their city, burst into spontaneous applause. On December 1, after Malcolm X made a speech, reporters asked him for a comment about the assassination of President Kennedy. The spokesman for the Nation of Islam said that it was a case of "chickens coming home to roost" and added that "chickens coming home to roost never did make me sad; they've always made me glad." "The New York Times" wrote, "in further criticism of Mr. Kennedy, the Muslim