Well, there you have it. That pen was drunk!
Posted on 05/04/2006 4:48:15 PM PDT by Aussie Dasher
Rep. Patrick Kennedy crashed his car near the Capitol early Thursday, and a police official said he appeared intoxicated. Kennedy said he had had no alcohol before the accident.
Kennedy, D-R.I., addressed the issue after a spate of news reports.
"I was involved in a traffic accident last night at First and C Street SE near the U.S. Capitol," Kennedy said in a written statement released by his office. "I consumed no alcohol prior to the incident. I will fully cooperate with the Capitol Police in whatever investigation they choose to undertake."
Kennedy appeared to be intoxicated when he crashed his car into a barrier on Capitol Hill early Thursday morning, said Louis P. Cannon, president of the Washington chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police.
Cannon, who was not there, said the officers involved in the accident were instructed by an official "above the rank of patrolman" to take Kennedy home. No sobriety tests were conducted at the scene.
A letter written by a Capitol Police officer to Acting Chief Christopher McGaffin said Kennedy appeared to be staggering when he left the vehicle after the crash about 3 a.m. The letter was first reported by Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper.
Kennedy said he was late for a vote, officer Greg Baird said in the letter to McGaffin. Baird is acting chairman of the Capitol Hill chapter of the FOP police union. The last vote of the night had occurred almost six hours earlier.
Kennedy, the son of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., and his staff declined to discuss any further details of the accident. The congressman took part in House votes Thursday.
Capitol Police did not immediately return phone calls for comment. They issued a one-line statement saying they were investigating a traffic violation that occurred early in the morning at that location. Baird wrote McGaffin that two sergeants who responded to the accident conferred with the watch commander and were ordered to leave the scene.
He said that after the officers left, Capitol Police officials gave Kennedy a ride home.
Kennedy spent time at a drug rehabilitation clinic before he went to Providence College. He has been open about mental health issues, including being diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
and no sobriety test even tho appearing intoxicated and staggering.
Ain't he luck he ain't a pubbie? He'd still be in jail, his career would be over and it would top of the hour for weeks on end
gotta cut Joan some slack. She was married to teddyBoy
They are hated by the rank and file in Hyannis Port. The Kennedy kids were an unruly bunch but no one could touch them
Yep - obviously he wasn't going to "the house" - therefore, he should have had a ride downtown and tested - or arrested
Good Lord! I've had an easier time routinely "translating" & transcribing doctors' orders.
I suspicion the DC police have their standing orders - and they know if they don't follow thru with the protection, their a*s is grass
but wouldn't it have been nice if one of the on the scene officers turned on the camera and insisted on a test anyway - and then when he was disciplined - he could've become a hero in the press - and hired somewhere where honest cops would be honored - and the sheeple would get another wake up call about the real 'unethical' gang in DC
ya think?
Well, there you have it. That pen was drunk!
LOLLOFLHHO Little ole lady laying on the floor laughing her hiney off.
I think more folk know than wonder
The Park Police did a wonderful job on that Vince Foster murder case.../s
Absolute BS, he should be arrested for making a false statement to a police officer, one of us serfs would have gone straight to jail. When the fix is in, the fix is IN! Disgusting......
CHECK THIS OUT: Nobody investigated this! And it's worse.
Published on Friday, May 5, 2000 in the Boston Globe
Profile In Arrogance:
Congressman Tom Lantos Vs
Injured 13-Year Old Boy
by Susan Milligan
WASHINGTON - The wheels of government were turning slowly, as ever, on Wednesday when one of them rolled right over 13-year-old Owen Sanderson's left foot.
Sanderson and his eighth-grade classmates from the Florence Sawyer School in Bolton, Mass., were crossing the plaza in front of the US Capitol when a California congressman drove over the boy's foot, then left the scene without leaving his car to see whether the boy was hurt, witnesses said yesterday.
Representative Tom Lantos was driving slowly and caught the youth's foot under his right front tire, sending the boy to the pavement screaming in pain, the boy and his teachers said in interviews.
But while several horrified teachers and the principal shouted at Lantos to stop, the California Democrat from San Mateo sat rigidly, staring straight ahead and refusing to get out of his white Ford Taurus, which carried US Congress plates, the witnesses said.
''The first thing I heard was Owen screaming,'' said Ken Tucker, principal of the Worcester-area school. ''Owen's foot was pinned under the car.''
Lantos, 72, finally reversed slightly, freeing Owen's foot and ankle, and drove off without checking on Owen's condition, said Tucker and several teachers.
Lantos paid a $25 fine after being issued a ticket for ''failure to pay full time and attention,'' said Lieutenant Dan Nichols, spokesman for the Capitol Police, adding that the investigation is closed.
Lantos said he had no idea the boy had been hurt.
''I was driving to my office. ... There was a typical spring mob of tourists and kids and so on,'' Lantos said yesterday in an interview. ''One of the kids, horsing around, not looking or something, jumped in front of the car, stumbled, then got up and walked away.''
Lantos said he was then ushered forward by a Capitol Police officer, and he drove off - thinking nothing had happened. Learning yesterday that the boy had been injured, Lantos said he would invite Owen's parents to Washington for lunch.
The boy is now in a cast and using a wheelchair. Owen's X-rays show no broken bones, but there is a danger that his growth plate - the part of the bone involved in the growth of his leg - could have been damaged, said the school nurse, Darlene Perkins, who is on the trip.
Doctors at Children's Hospital in Washington said Owen must undergo new X-rays in seven to 10 days to determine if serious damage was done. The boy, who ski races and plays soccer, could be in an air cast - a type of plastic brace - for four to six weeks, said art teacher Joyce Malin, who accompanied Owen to the hospital.
Owen said he was walking across the crosswalk toward the Capitol steps about 9 a.m. Wednesday, when ''I remember a car creeping slowly toward me, and then I fell down.
''I felt a grab on my ankle and my left leg, and I just fell,'' Owen said, sitting at the food court in Union Station, where the class was dining yesterday after a morning visit to the Washington Monument and Museum of American History.
''I was trying to push the car off me and it wouldn't move. It hurt really bad when it was under the wheel,'' Owen said.
The boy, slender and red-haired with a shy smile, said he does not harbor bad feelings toward Lantos or his wife Annette, who was a passenger in the car.
''I'm not really mad at them,'' Owen said. But ''it's disappointing that they didn't get out and say, `Are you OK?' I just feel bad he didn't call to apologize.''
Owen's teachers and principal, however, are dismayed at what they see as insensitivity and arrogance by a government official.
''If he had stopped and spoken to us, we would have had a much different response to this,'' said Malin, the art teacher. ''It's called human decency.''
''With kids, there's this sense of fairness,'' said Steven Grant, a math and science teacher. ''We try to teach them about accountability.''
Youngsters ''learn too often in life that if you have money and power, you're above the law,'' said Perkins, the school nurse. ''That's not the way it's supposed to be.''
Reached in Bolton, Owen's mother, Dee Sanderson, declined to comment on the episode other than to say she was pleased with the response of the teachers and principal.
The students were on their way to hear their local representative, Martin Meehan, a Lowell Democrat, give an informal chat about government on the House steps.
Meehan said he did not witness the event. ''I heard a commotion, so I went over,'' he said. Then Meehan realized Owen was part of the class he was supposed to address.
''Owen's a great kid, very courageous,'' Meehan said, declining to comment on his colleague, Lantos.
The teachers, Tucker, and the tour guide disputed Lantos's assertion that he did not know Owen was hurt. Lantos ''was asked several times to get out of the car by myself and the teachers,'' Tucker said. ''He was told, `You hit a kid and you need to stop.'
''He was trying to drive through a crowd of kids, was what he was doing. Why or how, I don't know,'' Tucker said. ''He didn't roll down his window. He made no offer to get out of the car.''
Laura Friend, an English teacher who was among those chaperoning the 68 students, said she raced toward the Taurus and screamed at Lantos through a half-open window.
''I was saying, `Stop, stop, stop! Back up, back up, back up!' He didn't look at me. He didn't even take his hands off the wheel or anything,'' Friend said.
Tour guide Bob McManus said, ''I don't think he even turned his head. It's appalling. You couldn't believe your eyes.''
When it appeared Lantos might not stop, Tucker said, he stepped in front of the car. A Capitol Police officer twice told the principal to move out of the way or he would be arrested, Tucker and several teachers recounted.
''The officer said, `Look at his license plates. He's a congressman. If we need to get in touch with him, we can find him if need be,''' Friend recalled.
Nichols, of the Capitol Police, said there was a ''misunderstanding'' between Lantos and the officer. Lantos thought he was being waved on to continue to his office, but the officer was only urging him to come forward out of the crowd, where he could stop more safely, Nichols said.
Owen, along with his schoolmates and teachers, gave extensive reports to the Capitol Police. But the youth said he is more concerned with ''getting this cast off'' than getting into a dispute with Lantos. ''I know it was an accident,'' Owen said. ''Maybe next time he should apologize. It would be a nice thing.''
© Copyright 2000 Globe Newspaper Company
This is the preferential treatment given to Dems by the media... Where in the article does it say that Lantos is a democrat? If a Republican were involved, it would have been disclosed in the first sentence and multiple times throughout the article. Disgusting!
righto.
a few months later - to "prove" the suicide, they released a photo purportedly showing the back of his head, in the park - etc (he died in high summer)
an astute English reporter noticed that the leaves in the background were in full FALL color.
That little tidbit died a quick news-death.
LOL - LOVE the picture! great! - God knows what goes on inside that house!... :))
Holy heck! I didn't know about this law! No doubt Daddy used it hundreds of times, and taught it to his kids with their ABCs.
I daresay it's time for a change. Driving under the influence is OK in DC, as long as it's an elected official???? Dang, I'd get off the roads after 1 pm!
"Was the gun found over the bank and down the hill ?"
Someone threw it down the hill.
"And was there no blood found at the park ?"
Vince killed elsewhere and dumped at the park...
and the "reporters" dutifully "reported" not the news, but the pre-fed storyline
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