how did they catch lee harvey oswald

They located and arrested Lee Harvey Oswald after a chain of quick clues: a description of the suspected assassin, a murdered police officer nearby, and a suspicious man hiding in a movie theater.

Quick Scoop: How They Caught Lee Harvey Oswald

1. Moments after the JFK shooting

• After President John F. Kennedy was shot in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963, witnesses gave police a basic description of a slender white man seen in an upper window of the Texas School Book Depository.

• Oswald worked in that building and left shortly after the shooting, which put him on the police radar once they started checking the employees.

2. Oswald leaves the scene

• Oswald left the Book Depository, boarded a bus, then a taxi, and went to his rooming house in the Oak Cliff area of Dallas.

• At the rooming house, he picked up a revolver and changed clothes before heading back out on foot, which later became part of the timeline investigators pieced together.

3. The murder of Officer J.D. Tippit

• Around 1:15 p.m., Dallas police officer J.D. Tippit stopped Oswald on a residential street because he matched the broadcast description of the suspect from Dealey Plaza.

• Oswald shot Tippit multiple times and fled on foot, and several witnesses saw the shooting and the fleeing gunman, giving police a more specific description and direction of travel.

4. Suspicious man at the Texas Theatre

• A nearby shoe store manager, Johnny Brewer, noticed a man (Oswald) acting oddly, ducking into his shop’s entrance before slipping into the Texas Theatre without buying a ticket.

• Brewer alerted the theater cashier, who called the police to report a suspicious man inside; this call brought multiple officers to the theater very quickly.

5. The arrest inside the theater

• Police stopped the movie, turned on the house lights, and Brewer pointed out Oswald sitting toward the rear of the theater.

• When officers moved to arrest him, Oswald pulled a revolver and tried to fire, but the officers wrestled it away and took him into custody after a brief struggle.

• Initially, he was arrested for the murder of Officer Tippit; only later that day was he formally charged with the assassination of President Kennedy as evidence was connected.

6. Why the police focused on Oswald

• Key reasons Oswald was “caught” and then tied to the assassination included:
  1. He worked at the Texas School Book Depository, from which shots were fired.

2. He left the building soon after the shooting and could not be accounted for in the immediate aftermath.

3. He killed Officer Tippit while matching the general suspect description and then tried to resist arrest with a revolver.

4. The rifle linked to the assassination was later tied to him, along with other forensic and documentary evidence, according to official investigations.

7. What happened after the arrest

• Oswald was interrogated several times, denied killing anyone, and maintained that he was a “patsy,” but he was formally charged with Kennedy’s murder in the early hours of November 23.

• On November 24, while being moved through the basement of the Dallas police headquarters for transfer to the county jail, nightclub owner Jack Ruby stepped forward and shot Oswald on live television, killing him before any trial could be held.

This sequence—eyewitness descriptions, Tippit’s murder, Brewer’s suspicion, and the Texas Theatre arrest—is the core answer to “how did they catch Lee Harvey Oswald.”

TL;DR:
Police traced Oswald from the Book Depository to his rooming house, then to the street where he killed Officer Tippit, and finally to the Texas Theatre, where they arrested him after a brief armed struggle.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.