Car Crashes Into Building at Bush Rally
Sat November 1, 2003 02:17 PM ET

By Randall Mikkelsen
SOUTHAVEN, Miss. (Reuters) - A car breached security and crashed into a building where President Bush was attending a political rally on Saturday. Police swarmed the car and dragged a woman away.

"The president was never in any danger whatsoever," White House spokesman Trent Duffy told reporters. "There was a vehicle that did crash into the side of the building."

Duffy said a suspect was immediately detained and handed over to local law enforcement officials. Television footage showed helmeted police officers swarming the dark car and struggling with a blond-haired woman who was pushed to the ground and later dragged away, apparently resisting.

Police lifted a young girl from the car and a young boy was also led away. Neither the woman or the children were identified.

Bush was in his limousine at the time but was not close to the car when it crashed into a loading dock area of the DeSoto Civic Center, Duffy said. The president later was seen waving to reporters before boarding Air Force One for his next stop.

Bush kept to his schedule, traveling to Paducah, Kentucky, for the second of four speeches he will make before traveling to his Crawford, Texas ranch on Saturday night.

Security officials had chased the car as it headed toward the building, witnesses said. Some security personnel were seen running with guns drawn toward the entrance of the arena where Bush had given a speech. Others kept spectators and media away from the crash.

After several minutes, the president's motorcade left the scene.
Duffy said that no shots were fired.

The White House spokesman declined to discuss further specifics of the incident or to say whether the president saw it or what his reaction was.

The DeSoto County sheriff's department was not releasing details about woman, who appeared on television footage to be between 25 and 35 years old.

[Source: Reuters]

[ 11-01-2003, 03:57 PM: Message edited by: Dreamer128 ]

very strange. I just saw this on the news!

WTF? [img]graemlins/saywhat.gif[/img]

[ 11-02-2003, 12:53 AM: Message edited by: HolyWarrior ]

Must be some misunderstanding or something in there. I don't think a nurse's aid would take her three children along if she were trying to harm someone.

ABC also mentions that she was trying to locate her mother-in-law. Perhaps she needed a sitter. ;) Anyone can become irrational.

<font color=deepskyblue>Normally, I would agree with you <font color=palegreen>Willow</font>, although I would base it more on a mother not wanting to harm her children rather than it having anything to do with her occupation.

Just a little over a year ago, another nurses aid hit a homeless man on her way home from a party. But she didn't just knock him off the road, the man was thrown onto the hood of the care and impaled on the windshield. What did the nurses' aid do? She drove home, parked her car in the garage, and LEFT THE MAN ON HER WINDSHIELD!!! He died a very slow and painful death...all because she was scared of losing her job (she had been doing drugs at the party she was coming home from).

But, alas, even the "Maternal Instinct" is no longer as solid as it once was. Just this past week, a mother her in our rural little town set her trailer on fire with all 5 of her daughters inside. According the story in the newspaper, she at first had planned to just kill herself, then decided to leave the girls in the trailer too, then lost her nerve about committing suicide and ran outside. Fortunately, she also had a final burst of maternal instinct at the last minute and got her daughters outside before they were injured....but it could easily have been another tragedy of a mother killing all her children.

They're have been a handful of "high profile" cases of this occurring here in America over the last several years.

So - until more clarification is given - I can't automatically assume the mother just had some type of mishap with her car that caused it to careen out of control (although I certainly HOPE that is the case).</font>

<font color=deepskyblue>I just saw a quick update on this incident on the Morning News. According to authorities, the woman was not trying to harm President Bush. The report said that she had apparantly been under a lot of stress recently and may have been trying to harm herself. She had to drive through a police checkpoint and around some obstacles set up to control traffic flow. She has been charged with two counts of aggravated assault on a police officer but faces no federal charges.</font>

It's all a big mistake, don't forget the driver was a woman. [img]graemlins/hidesbehindsofa.gif[/img] :D

[ 11-03-2003, 07:26 AM: Message edited by: johnny ]