Ran a stop sign. Bad.
No DUI or suspicion thereof.
No charges.
Reported to the police promptly after occurrence. No time to sober up if drunk.
Not married and passenger was of the same sex.
Now Ted Kennedy:
No proof of DUI, but he'd just left a party where booze flowed like Prohibition had just ended. As is true of Kennedys in general, he was well acquainted with alcoholic beverages. He was seen drinking at the party. Also shortly before it. "Frankly, everybody was a little bombed, except for LaRosa, who doesn't drink.", according to Joseph Gargan, a friend of Kennedys.
Kennedy's confirmed alcohol consumption was
4:30 PM ( 3 ) - Rum and Cokes aboard the Bettawin - (witness: Stan Moore )
6:00 PM ( 2 ) - Heineken Beers at the Shiretown Inn - ( witness: Joseph Gargan )
7:00 PM ( 1 ) - Rum and Coke in hot tub at Lawrence Cottage - ( witness: Jack Crimmins )
8:30 PM
to
11:15 PM ( 2 )* - Rum and Cokes at the Party - ( witness: Ted Kennedy )
*Because this number is based on Kennedy's inquest testimony, it chould be viewed with some skepticism. The actual number of drinks was probably greater.
The actual consumption was probably considerably higher.
Between 11:15 PM and 11:50, Kennedy left the party with Mary Jo Kopechne, not his wife. He was married. He drove. This is unusual in that he had a chauffeur and the chauffeur did the driving ordinarily.
He turned off paved Chappaquidick Road onto dirt Dike Road with Kopechne. He later claimed he made a wrong turn and was unfamiliar with Dike Road, although he had driven it at least 3 times that day.
Kennedy is believed to have hit Dike Bridge at about 12:45 AM.
At 8 AM the flipped over car was discovered in the water by fishermen. They headed to the nearest house and the house owner reported the incident to police.
At 8:45 AM the license plate number of the car was tied to its owner: Senator Ted Kennedy. A continued search quickly discovered Kopechne's body in the car. Quoting Officer Farrar who found the body, "If she had been dead or unconscious, she would have been prone, sinking to the bottom or floating on top. She definitely was holding herself in a position to avail herself of the last remaining air that had to be trapped in the car." This was at 8:55 AM. Farrar repeatedly expressed the opinion that Mary Jo Kopechne had lived for some time underwater by breathing a bubble of trapped air, and that she could have been saved if rescue personnel had been promptly called to the scene. He had equipment to administer air to a trapped person directly or to augment an air pocket inside a submerged automobile.
At 9:25 AM Kennedy was `told by Markham, a member of his staff, that a tow truck was heading for the bridge.
On August 13, based on a tip from a telephone company employee, The Manchester Union Leader reported that Senator Kennedy had charged 17 long distance telephone calls to his credit card during the hours he claimed to be "in shock" after the accident.
One of the calls Kennedy made from the ferryhouse was to Mary Jo Kopechne's parents. The Senator, however, neglected to mention that he was the driver of the accident car when he called to report their daughter's death. Instead, they learned that information later from a wire service story.
The Kopechnes found Kennedy's evasiveness and lack of candor baffling. "We didn't even know she was with Kennedy - that kind of upset us," Joe Kopechne said. "There we were, the last to know."
About 9:45 AM Kennedy headed for the police station to report the "accident"- -9 hours after its occurrence and too late to test for alcohol.
Kennedy entered a plea of guilty to a charge of leaving the scene of an accident after causing injury. He received a sentence of two months in jail, which was suspended
Similar at all? I think not.
To quote Ted Kennedy later: "Do we operate under a system of equal justice under law? Or is there one system for the average citizen and another for the high and mighty?"
- Senator Ted Kennedy, 1973
ytedk.com
Millard Fillmore:
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