Police say they were prevented from giving Kennedy a sobriety test

New York Daily News
May. 05, 2006

WASHINGTON - Rep. Patrick Kennedy wrecked his car in an early morning accident on Capitol Hill Thursday, and police say supervisors stopped them from giving him a sobriety test.

Two police union officials, who were not at the scene, complained that the Rhode Island congressman and son of Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., looked like he'd been drinking after crashing into a barrier near the Capitol building at 2:45 a.m.

"The driver exited the vehicle and he was observed to be staggering," Officer Greg Baird, the acting head of the Capitol police union, wrote in a letter to his boss, according to the newspaper Roll Call.

Lou Cannon, president of the Washington chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police, said Kennedy looked intoxicated.

"It's my understanding that he had an odor of alcohol about him and he was unsteady on his feet," Cannon said.

Kennedy, who has a history of substance abuse and depression, admitted to the car accident, but denied he had been drinking.

"I was involved in a traffic incident last night," said the 38-year-old. "I consumed no alcohol prior to the incident. I will fully cooperate with the Capitol Police in whatever investigation they choose to undertake."

Late Thursday night, Kennedy put out a second statement saying he had taken sleep medication and a prescription anti-nausea drug that can cause drowsiness.

Baird complained in his letter to acting Capitol police Chief Christopher McGaffin that Kennedy and a pair of sergeants thwarted any proper investigation.

When cops first approached, he "declared to them he was a Congressman and was late to a vote," Baird's letter says. "The House had adjourned nearly three hours before this incident."

It was unclear if Kennedy raised the voting issue intentionally to avoid being detained and tested, because Capitol Hill lawmakers get a legal pass to rush to votes.

Baird says the sergeants stopped the officers from doing a field sobriety test, and after talking to the watch commander, "ordered all of the Patrol Division Units to leave the scene and that they were taking over."

Kennedy was then given a ride home.

Baird's letter also said Kennedy narrowly missed a cop car before slamming into the barrier with his lights off.

Capitol police would only say in a statement that they "are investigating a traffic violation."

But the police union is demanding a full investigation.

"If the events unfolded as they have been reported to me, and I believe they did, a complete and immediate investigation into them is required," Baird wrote. He demanded to know why the responding officers were not allowed to investigate Kennedy.

"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," he wrote.

The early morning crash comes just a couple weeks after Kennedy wrecked another car in Portsmouth, R.I., on April 15. The congressman, driving a 2003 Crown Victoria, reportedly collided with a Nissan Maxima outside a drug store. No charges were filed.

Kennedy has grown up in the shadow of his famous uncles - President John F. Kennedy and Sen. Robert Kennedy - and his father, who had his own car crash that killed Mary Jo Kopechne in Chappaquiddick, Mass., in July 1969.

The younger scion of America's most storied and star-crossed political dynasty has battled his own demons. He admitted in 2000 that he was a mental health advocate because he had wrestled with depression since he was a teenager - and that led him to abuse cocaine.

He told a crowd in Woonsocket, R.I, that he regularly talks to a psychiatrist and takes anti-depressants. "I myself have suffered from depression, I have been treated by psychiatrists," Kennedy said.