It’s assumed since he didn’t report it until forced to the next day. He was at a party (sans wife) where he left with Mz Kopechne to destinations unknown. When he returned to his hotel room after the accident he went to bed, woke up and continued his day as if nothing happened. If you want to debate his state of drunkeness I will be happy to expound on Kennedy’s behavior. Sobriety does not improve the story.
You can read the short version on Wiki. Keep in mind he served no time for his actions and no civil suit was filed. He wrote a check to her family for $90,904 and his insurance kicked in another $50,000.
No, we’ve established you don’t have a lick of common sense and will ignore the fact that Kennedy killed someone, walked away and didn’t tell anyone. What possible reason can you supply that he left a party, sped away from a policeman and didn’t report a fatal accident until the following day?
from Wiki:
Back at his hotel, Kennedy complained at 2:55 am to the hotel owner that he had been awoken by a noisy party.[2] By 7:30 am the next morning he was talking “casually” to the winner of the previous day’s sailing race, with no indication that anything was amiss.[2] At 8 a.m., Gargan and Markham joined Kennedy at his hotel where they had a “heated conversation”, even though the ferry operator did not see them take the ferry to get to Edgartown.[2] The three men subsequently crossed back to Chappaquidick Island on the ferry, where Kennedy made a series of phone calls from a payphone by the crossing to his friends for advice; he again did not report the accident to authorities.[2]
You can read about the party he went to and the amounts of alcohol brought to it and what he consumed prior to arriving. It was a party of 6 married men and 6 unmarried women.
from the site: - Investigators later located the package store in South Boston where it was confirmed that Jack Crimmins had purchased three half gallons of vodka, four fifths of scotch, two bottles of rum and two cases of beer for the party at Chappaquiddick
Sooooo why did he plead guilty to leaving the scene of an accident and causing injury? from the Wiki site:
On July 25, seven days after the incident, Kennedy entered a plea of guilty to a charge of leaving the scene of an accident after causing injury.
also:
Judge James A. Boyle presided at the inquest. Among Judge Boyle’s conclusions were the following:
“Kopechne and Kennedy did not intend to return to Edgartown” at the time they left the party.
“Kennedy did not intend to drive to the ferry slip”.
“[Kennedy]'s turn onto Dike Road was intentional”.
Judge Boyle also said that "negligent driving appears to have contributed to the death of Mary Jo Kopechne
Since Kennedy has admitted to the accident I’m not sure where you’re going with this. But maybe he can get his check back from Mary Jo’s next of kin based on your belief he lied in court about it.
Kennedy slammed 3 boilermakers in 20 minutes before starting on his island rendezvous. At the party there were:
6 married men
6 unmarried women
the refreshments consisted of:
1 1/2 gallons of vodka
1 gallon of scotch (4/5’ths)
2 bottles of rum
2 cases of beer (this is in addition to a 6 pack he shared earlier)
Common sense would dictate that the Kennedy, a heavy drinker who slammed down 3 boilermakers earlier in the day, continued to drink heavily at the party. Testimony accounted for a minimum of 8 drinks and 2 of those were rum and cokes in a tall glass. Blind stupid drunk is the only explanation for abandoning someone trapped in a submerged car and not telling the authorities until the following day.
And according to - Joseph Gargan who was at the party, “Some people at the party had had quite a few, no question”, he observed. “Frankly, everybody was a little bombed, except for LaRosa, who doesn’t drink.”
bolding mine. LaRosa was a former fireman but Kennedy chose not to tell him when he walked back to the party and instead sought out 2 lawyers to help him. He hid in the back of a car so no one would see him.
As noted in the other Ted Kennedy thread, Mass. law changed in 2004 to require that any U.S. Senate vacancy be filled by special election. CNN.com says the same. This was apparently done to prevent then-Gov. Mitt Romney from appointing a Republican to John Kerry’s seat, had Kerry been elected President.
Everything I’ve read about this incident, suggests that Ted wasn’t bothered in the least, by any pangs of conscience. He delivered his pre-screened press release (saying how he swam the Edgartown-chappaquiddick gap TWICE that night), and paid his $35.00 fine.
(max. MA penalty for leaving the scene of an auto accident).
No. He would have been drunk while driving the car. It was hours later when he swam to the hotel. Kennedy is an avid yachtsman and swimming would be easier than walking. He was swimming earlier in the day while drinking. That aside, how does looking at his behavior sober make this better? He was drinking throughout the day and the only excuse for not reporting the accident was to avoid conviction of drunk driving. He went out of his way to avoid getting help and instead chose lawyers to deal with the situation. At one point he talked about fabricating a story:
The Senator was silent during these discussions, but it was clear to Gargan that he did not want to report the accident at this time.
Kennedy began expressing alternate ideas about the situation:
“Why couldn’t Mary Jo have been driving the car? Why couldn’t she have let me off, and driven to the ferry herself and made a wrong turn?”
Kennedy asked to be brought back to the cottage to establish the story. After a while he would leave.
Kennedy suggested that when he was back at the Shiretown Inn, Gargan could “discover” the accident and report to police that Mary Jo had been alone in the car.
Kennedy did everything he could do to establish an alibi for the accident including an attempt to get his friends to conspire to an alternate story. He awoke the following day in his hotel room and continued his business as if nothing happened. He even called one of his girl friends to get a phone number. His friends showed up, disheveled from no sleep, and forced him to report it.
During this time divers found Mary Jo in the car clutching at the seat with her head in an air pocket. No autopsy was performed but the undertaker found very little water in her lungs. Between the statements of the diver and the mortician, it appears that she survived the crash, and was able to find an air pocket. She died alone, in a submerged car at night, waiting for rescue. Kennedy is a serial liar who was more worried about his career than the life of one of his constituents. This wasn’t a minor lap of judgment in an emergency. This was a calculated attempt to save his career at the expense of human life.
You cannot read about the events of that night and believe Ted Kennedy is a good person.
I’ve pointed out that Ted Kennedy is an unrepentant liar with no respect for human life. He’s lived the life of wealth and privilege and successfully used that power to sweep Mary Jo’s death under the rug. When he owns up to what he did and shows respect for her I will forgive him and show respect for him.
I don’t see Kennedy’s illness as an excuse to speak well of him. This isn’t about politics. Kennedy has a long and distinguished career. This is about a woman who died in a submerged vehicle at night while he worried about that career. My empathy is with Mary Jo and the horrible way she died.
This is posted in Great Debates. If you are unwilling to debate it then take your attitude and walk away. If not, you can stick your head wherever you normally do when you want to hide from a discussion. I’m not going to get into a pissing match when the facts are available to debate.
Having been probably the only person on this board who has actually BEEN to Chappaquiddick and visited the scene, I personally think old Teddy was more then negligent. I think the man murdered the poor woman.
If you could drive the extremely narrow, twisting, turning, pothole infested road out to the bridge, a very obvious and well marked bridge, you should have no trouble crossing. The water near the bridge is less than 5 feet deep at high tide. I think a lot of folks assume that the bridge is some large affair with deep swirling waters underneath. Nothing could be further from the truth as this picture clearly shows. It is a little ramp over a puddle.
I find it hard to imagine a healthy young woman couldn’t have escaped from the car as easily as Kennedy did. Of course all the doors were locked in the car for some strange reason. I know I would be locking up my doors for security on a virtually deserted island! No folks, IMHO, when, despite precautions, it looked like she might escape through a window, the man held her under until she stopped struggling.
Was she pregnant with his child? Had she threatened to go public? Since an autopsy was never performed, only Teddy knows, and now the grave beckons. May he rot in hell, as he certainly will, at least under the protocols of his chosen superstition.
I think it’s safe to assume that nobody really hates Ted Kennedy because of the death of Mary Jo Kopechne (outside of the Kopechne family perhaps). He killed her in a drunk driving accident in 1969. Over ten thousand people a year are killed in drunk driving accidents. I assuming nobody has enough hate for all of the hundreds of thousands of drunk drivers that have killed people like Kennedy did.
The people who hate Ted Kennedy hate him for his politics. They just use Mary Jo Kopechne’s death as an excuse.
