MEDICATION TAKEN BEFORE CRASH

Police: There Was No Reason To Test Gov. Bush's Daughter For Impairment

Noelle Bush, daughter of Gov. Jeb Bush, told Tallahassee police after
a September 2000 car crash that she'd taken prescription medication
before the wreck.

A Police Department spokesman said Wednesday she showed no signs of
drug intoxication, and, since there were no injuries in the crash, she
wasn't tested for impairment. Bush received a traffic citation and was
released.

"Did that medication in any way impact her driving?" said Scott Hunt,
Tallahassee Police Department spokesman. "There was no way for us to
prove that."

She was arrested by TPD this week on charges she tried to fake a
prescription for the anti-depressant Xanax at a North Monroe Street
pharmacy.

Gov. Bush's office Wednesday declined to comment on the September 2000
crash. It was the third of Noelle Bush's four crashes in Leon County
over the past two years.

Sandra Morrow, then a Tallahassee bank employee, said Bush sideswiped
her as she waited in the left-turn lane at the intersection of East
Tennessee and North Gadsden streets. She was on her way to work about
8 a.m. Sept. 26, 2000, when Bush passed in her white Volkswagen.

"All of a sudden, this car came flying by and, thunk," Morrow, 38,
said in an interview with the Tallahassee Democrat.

The Volkswagen continued down Tennessee to a convenience store at
Meridian Road, across from Leon High School - followed by a man who'd
witnessed the crash. Morrow parked her 1995 Ford truck in the parking
lot of a nearby restaurant and walked to the store.

That's when Bush began to shout, Morrow said.

"She was freaking out," Morrow said. "She was like, 'Look at my car,
look at my car.'

"Then she came up in my face like she was going to hit me. She was
belligerent, on top of me."

The man who'd witnessed the crash, and asked not to be named, agreed
this week that Bush was "wigging out" and seemed near hysterics.

Morrow and Bush began to argue but were interrupted by Leon County
Sheriff's Deputy Dan Riggs, who'd been inside the convenience store.
On Wednesday, Riggs said Bush seemed "confused" when he asked her for
her driver's license and registration, and she fumbled through her
purse and glove compartment for the papers.

"She said she'd been up all night, or something to that effect," Riggs
said. "But it's not against the law to be confused or overtired."

Since the crash happened inside Tallahassee's city limits, Riggs
called for a city officer and turned it over to him. When the officer
questioned her, Bush told him she'd been taking prescription
medication, said Hunt, the TPD spokesman.

Bush was defiant, according to Morrow.

"She said, 'It don't make a damn what I'm on; it's a prescription,' "
Morrow said.

Hunt says Officer Frank Arias can't remember whether Bush told him
what drug she'd taken. But her eyes were not bloodshot, her speech was
not slurred, and no one had been injured in the crash, so he didn't
have probable cause to take a blood sample, Hunt said.

"There was just no cause," he said. "We can't demand that someone
submit an evidentiary specimen without cause."

According to Morrow, Arias wrote Bush a ticket and was ready to let
her drive away. Morrow said she protested, saying that Bush was in no
shape to drive.

"He said, 'Well, maybe we need to call somebody,' " Morrow
said.

No way, Hunt says. Arias never had any intention of letting the
visibly shaken 23-year-old Bush drive. He alerted the governor's
office and an aide picked her up in a Chevrolet Suburban.

The crash gave Bush her fourth traffic ticket in 2000. She'd been
cited twice that January because she backed into a man's car in a
Tennessee Street parking lot, then left without reporting the crash.
She received another ticket in August for speeding in Madison County,
according to state records.

After the crash, she had to go to driving school to avoid a license
suspension. Florida drivers who accumulate 12 points in one year
automatically lose their licenses, unless they attend traffic school.
Before the crash, Bush had eight points - of 30 accumulated since
receiving her driver's license in 1993.

Morrow said Bush approached her to apologize before leaving the
September crash scene.

According to Morrow: "She said, 'My dad is going to kill me.' "