Last August I had dinner with a long lost Scottish friend. While we were catching up on the news, he told me that his cousin had been working security at the Gleneagles Hotel in Perthshire, Scotland during the July 6-8, 2005 G-8 Summit. Protesters were in the area, so Summit leaders were kept inside the hotel grounds. Gleneagles is the premier hotel in perhaps all of the UK. Within the grounds the hotel is surrounded by a large golf course.
At some point during the day Bush decided to ride his bicycle around the hotel grounds. The guards had been forewarned of Bush's approach. "Here he comes again," they said to each other. Bush was wearing a bike helmet and knee/elbow pads (Scottish police felt the only thing lacking from his attire was a skateboard) and waved to security guards while saying something about enjoying Scotland and his time there. While his head was turned away, he rode right past my friend's cousin, who was standing guard, and ran his bicycle into a Scottish policeman,
breaking the policeman's leg. Bush fell onto the ground. My friend's cousin was just a couple of feet away.
The Secret Service, not knowing if Bush had been shot, immediately ran over to Bush and put him into a black Suburban SUV, which had driven up quickly and whisked him away.
Scottish security was surprised because it was their guy who was clearly injured, and he had been left behind, lying on the ground with what turned out to be a broken leg.
My friend's cousin and family kept expecting there to be news of the incident reported, either in the local Scottish media or internationally since the incident had happened at the Summit, but there was nothing, at least nothing reporting what had really happened.
When I returned home from dinner, I googled for info about the Summit but couldn't find anything reporting the policeman's leg being broken. I did find a
http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=297002006">Scotsman article, below, published on Sunday, 26 Feb 2006, providing "remarkable details" of the incident six months after the fact, but it didn't say anything about anyone's leg being broken:
At the hospital, a doctor examined the constable and diagnosed damage to his ankle ligaments and issued him with crutches.
And this part:
In Scotland, an accident such as the one at Gleneagles could have led to police action. Earlier this year, Strathclyde Police issued three fixed penalty notices to errant cyclists as part of a crack-down on rogue riders. Legal experts also suggested lesser mortals could have ended up with a fixed penalty fine, prosecution, or at least a good ticking-off from officers.
John Scott, a human rights lawyer, said: "There's certainly enough in this account for a charge of careless driving. Anyone else would have been warned for dangerous driving.
"I have had clients who have been charged with assaulting a police officer for less than this. The issue of how long the police officer was out of action for is also important. He was away from work for 14 weeks, and that would normally be very significant in a case like this."
No-one was available for comment from the White House.
A broken leg would justify 14 weeks out of work.
I also found this Feb. 13, 2006
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/02/20060213-4.html">WH press briefing, which took place 13 days before the above Scotsman piece was published, re: Dick Cheney shooting Mr. Whittington:
Q Well, I assume that people -- he got immediate medical attention. Aside from the medical attention, which I'm sure was swift, isn't there a public disclosure requirement that should have kicked in immediately?
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, and the Vice President's Office was working to make sure information got out. We learned additional information overnight -- throughout the night, we were learning additional information here in Washington. The Vice President spoke with Mrs. Katherine Armstrong and they agreed that she should make that information public. She was an eyewitness, she saw what occurred and she called her local paper to provide those facts to the local paper. And the Vice President's Office was ready to comment on it at that point.
Now, keep in mind that there's not a traveling press corps that was along with the Vice President on this trip. With that said, though, as I said, I think it's always important to get information out as quickly as possible. As you know, the way we have typically approached things, that I typically approach things -- I think of a similar incident when the President was in Gleneagles, Scotland, and he had a biking accident with a police officer there, and I quickly tried to give that information to the press through the pool reporter and provide that information to you all.
Surely, if the officer's leg were broken, McClellan would have known about it. A July 7, 2005
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/07/06/bush.bike/index.html">CNN article says this:
The officer, from the Strethclyde Police Department in Scotland, was taken to a local hospital as a precaution. He was treated and released, after an evaluation revealed no fractures, McClellan said.
Based on my friend's knowledge of the incident, McClellan is lying. My friend's cousin is a good friend of the officer whose leg was broken.
A July 8, 2005
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/07/AR2005070702231.html">Washington Post article reports:
The president blamed his high speed and a wet pavement for the crash that left him with several scrapes and the police officer he ran into with a sore ankle. "We were flying," he said.
"When you ride hard on a mountain bike, sometimes you fall, otherwise you're not riding hard," he said. "At the end of a good hour ride, the pavement was slick and the bike came out from underneath me, just like that person on the Tour de France the other day." Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, said Bush saw his doctor Thursday morning and was fine.
My friend said Bush wasn't going at a high speed because he was limited to the hotel grounds, which are flat, with perhaps a few dips in the asphalt. He simply lost control when he tried to look the other way, wave, talk, and ride his bike at the same time.
A
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush_Scotland_bicycle_accident#">Wikipedia search was how I'd initially found the above links, its own site having updated its extensive reporting of the incident by referring to the
Scotsman piece, noting:
On February 26, 2006, The Scotsman published a previously unreleased policy report which contradicted the administration's story...
Wikipedia didn't mention the officer sustaining a broken leg either but did report Bush's "falling to the ground, causing both himself and his bicycle to strike
on the lower legs.." which is closer to the version of the story my friend told to me. Interestingly, I found out tonight that Wikipedia has since scrubbed its site of the bicycle incident. Tonight I am posting all that I'd saved on disc back in August because I had another dinner with my Scottish friend this evening, and he says there is no question, Bush broke the Scottish police officer's leg.
Perhaps an astute reporter might simply ask Tony Snow a direct question: "Did the police officer's leg break when Bush collided with him at the 2005 G-8 summit?" and try to get a yes/no answer.
As for my Scottish friend's opinion, he thinks there is no way a recovering alcoholic could be wined and dined at a magnificent hotel during the G-8, where little business gets done but much pleasure is had, and not "fall off the bike."
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