Trackbacked at Free Constitution, Hot Air, Stop The ACLU, Stuck On Stupid:
Representative Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., crashed his car near the Capitol early Thursday, and a police official said he appeared intoxicated. Kennedy said he had taken sleep medication and a prescription anti-nausea drug that can cause drowsiness.
Mary Jo Kopechne was unavailable for comment.
This morning’s incident comes just over two weeks after Kennedy was involved in another car accident in Rhode Island.
Kennedy, the son of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., and his staff declined to discuss any further details of the accident.
According to a letter sent by Officer Greg Baird, acting chairman of the USCP FOP, the wreck took place at approximately 2:45 a.m. Thursday when Kennedy’s car, operating with its running lights turned off, narrowly missed colliding with a Capitol Police cruiser and smashed into a security barricade at First and C streets Southeast.
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 appeared to be intoxicated when he crashed his Ford Mustang 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. Kennedy said he was driven home by Capitol police.
“At no time did I ask for any special consideration,” he said. “I simply complied with what the officers asked me to do.”
How many of you out there would have been driven home by the cops if they watched you crash your car into a wall while driving drugged out?
Officer Greg Baird, acting chairman of the USCP FOP, asked the acting chief why officers on the scene were prevented from completing the appropriate investigation “into violations of law they witnessed. This appears to be interference with their duties as U.S. Capitol Police Officers and may have prevented the collection of evidence of such violations.”
Baird wrote that Capitol Police Patrol Division units, who are trained in driving under the influence cases, were not allowed to perform basic field sobriety tests on the Congressman. Instead, two sergeants, who also responded to the accident, proceeded to confer with the Capitol Police watch commander on duty and then “ordered all of the Patrol Division Units to leave the scene and that they were taking over.”
Kennedy addressed the issue after a spate of news reports. His initial statement said, “I consumed no alcohol prior to the incident.” but a hostess at a popular Capitol Hill watering hole told the Herald she saw him drinking in the hours before the crash. “He was drinking a little bit,” said the woman, who works at the Hawk & Dove and would not give her name.
Later, however, he issued a longer statement saying the attending physician for Congress had prescribed Phenergan on Tuesday to treat Kennedy’s gastroenteritis, an inflammation of the stomach and intestines.
Kennedy said he returned to his Capitol Hill home on Wednesday evening after a final series of votes in Congress and took “prescribed” amounts of Phenergan and Ambien, another prescribed drug that he occasionally takes to fall asleep.
“Some time around 2:45 a.m., I drove the few blocks to the Capitol Complex believing I needed to vote,” his second statement said. “Apparently, I was disoriented from the medication.”
Kennedy spent time at a drug rehabilitation clinic before he went to Providence College.
Patrick Kennedy, intoxicated, Phenergan, Ambien
2 responses so far ↓
1 Chris from Victoria, BC // May 5, 2006 at 4:18 pm
Background info: According to two independent sources, Kennedy probably lied about not using alcohol:
Capital Police incident report states Kennedy under influence of alcohol
Bar hostess says Kennedy drinking that night
As I’ve pointed out elsewhere, if he lied to the police about this, that was obstruction of justice.
However, there is a much more serious side to this.
Kennedy told officers he was going to a House vote at 2:45 AM. As you may be aware, the U.S. Constitution protects Members of Congress from being arrested or detained by the police in most circumstances providing they are going to or from the House to vote. This is to protect from interference in the Democratic process by the administration or police.
He lied to the Capital Police officers and told them he was on his way to a vote at 2:45 AM… when there was no vote… which may have caused the Capital Police to confer with higher-ups and the higher-ups to order not to arrest Kennedy because of the U.S. Constitution… is Kennedy guilty of obstruction of justice: a felony?
If I was on a jury, I’d have to conclude he was.
He’s trying to escape legal jeopardy.
Q. Why did he lie about his drinking to the officers if he did so?
A. Obstruction of justice.
Q. Why did he lie about going to a vote at 2:45 AM if he wasn’t?
A. Abusing his power as a Congressman to subvert the U.S. Constitution and obstruct justice.
So now he’s saying he wasn’t drinking, but he was abusing prescription drugs. This despite the two previous sources I cited that state he was either “under the influence of alcohol” (the cops) or “drinking” (bar hostess).
And Kennedy’s own statement said that he took precisely the prescribed amount of his prescription drugs and no more.
His statements have changed multiple times, but it’s his actions that night, which were in my opinion felonious.
If it walks like abusing his power to subvert the U.S. Constitution and obstruction of justice and if it talks like abusing his power to subvert the U.S. Constitution and obstruction of justice, it’s a duck.
2 MADD // May 30, 2006 at 3:33 pm
In order to bring attention to the Kennedy cover up, a group of like minded conservatives have banded together to produce the successful “Kennedy Sobriety Checkpoint,” held this past week in D.C.
They stood together, fighting the good fight, making the roads safer for you and me.
Their video can be seen at the Public Advocate Website. http://www.publicadvocateusa.org/