On Sunday, November 24, detectives were escorting Oswald through the basement of Dallas Police Headquarters toward an armored car that was to take him from the city jail (located on the fourth floor of police headquarters) to the nearby county jail. At 11:21 a.m. CST, Dallas nightclub operator Jack Ruby approached Oswald from the side of the crowd and shot him once in the abdomen at close range. As the shot rang out, a police detective recognized Ruby and exclaimed: “Jack, you son of a bitch!” The crowd outside the headquarters applauded when they heard that Oswald had been shot.

As Oswald ascended in the elevator to the basement, his last recorded words were “I want to see the American Civil Liberties Union”. When the shot rang out, Oswald screamed “Oh!” in pain and his hands clutched at his stomach as he moaned while slumping to the floor. While Ruby was subdued by police, Oswald was carried back into the basement level jail office. Detective Billy Combest asked Oswald, “Do you have anything you want to tell us now?” Oswald shook his head.

Drifting in and out of consciousness, Oswald was placed in an ambulance and was driven to Parkland Memorial Hospital, the same hospital where Kennedy was pronounced dead two days earlier. Frederick Bieberdorf, a medical student on duty who rode in the ambulance, said that—several blocks before reaching the hospital—Oswald started thrashing about, resisting Beiberdorf’s efforts of heart massage and attempting to free an oxygen mask over his mouth. Oswald died at 1:07 p.m; Dallas police chief Jesse Curry announced his death on a TV news broadcast.