Funny how this was edited out the news yesterday? I never saw anyhting about this!
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Bush gate-crasher
By KATHRYN MARCHOCKI and MICHAEL COUSINEAU
Union Leader Staff
http://www.theunionleader.com/articles_show.html?article=27452 MANCHESTER — Minutes before President Bush’s motorcade brought him to Air Force One yesterday, an apparently distraught woman blasted her car through a police checkpoint and made it onto a runway before pursuing authorities rammed her vehicle to a stop.
“She was going about 75 miles an hour. She just had the pedal to the metal and had no mercy,” said Barbara Timpson, 29, of Manchester, who watched in horror as the woman careened past about a half-dozen cruisers and airport vehicles stationed at the Manchester Airport entrance at Harvey and Perimeter roads.
Officers forced to jump out of the driver’s path leaped into their cruisers and sped off in pursuit, chasing her across a grassy median until two Manchester Airport vehicles forced her to a stop. One broadsided her; the other struck from the rear, witnesses said.
The woman claimed she was radioactive when taken into custody about 1:11 p.m., sources said.
“She said she was implanted by the government and she was radioactive,” one source said.
The woman, whom witnesses said appeared to be in her late 20s or early 30s, was not physically injured. She was being evaluated last night at a local hospital. Manchester police have yet to determine whether criminal charges will be brought. Police would not release her name.
The car is registered to Linda Marie Lyonnais, a Franklin woman who has possible Manchester connections. Police would not say if she was the woman driving the car.
About five to 10 minutes after the driver was taken into custody, President Bush’s motorcade drove through the same security checkpoint to cheering groups of people, witnesses said. The incident did not delay the President’s motorcade and Air Force One departed on schedule, police said.
“The President was never in danger,” Manchester Airport Assistant Manager J. Brian O’Neil said.
The woman’s car came to a stop on runway 624, a secondary runway about three-quarters of a mile from where Air Force One was parked on the west side of Wiggins Airways, Manchester Airport Director Kevin Dillon said. Airforce One was not within the woman’s line of sight, he said.
Traffic was stopped on Perimeter and Harvey roads to make way for the approaching motorcade as scores of residents and employees from nearby businesses lined the street to see the President pass.
Scores of witnesses watched in disbelief as the woman jumped out of a line of traffic backed up on Perimeter Road and peeled around the corner, heading the wrong way down Harvey Road. At the traffic lights in front of Manchester Fire Station 3, a state police cruiser pulled in front of her light blue Ford Escort, witnesses said.
She made a screeching U-turn and sped back up the other side of Harvey Road — again going in the wrong direction — and flew past cruisers and airport vehicles at the airport’s northeast entrance.
The gate was open, which is standard procedure for the pending arrival of the Presidential motorcade, Dillon said.
“A Secret Service agent and sheriff jumped in front of her. She almost took the sheriff out. The car knocked the baton out of his hand,” said Frank Conery, 42, an outside sales agent for MSC Industrial Supply Co. at 1 Perimeter Road.
“The police and Secret Service showed a tremendous amount of restraint not shooting her right there,” Conery said.
When she first turned onto Harvey Road, several officers quickly pursued her on foot, some reaching for their holsters, said Richard Desmarais, 42, of Manchester.
“When the cops pulled out their guns, one of the guys yelled out, ‘Remember there are a lot of bystanders here!’” Desmarais said.
But when she turned around and roared toward them, they rushed back to their cruisers, he said.
“She was moving. She was moving. That pedal was to the floor. You could hear that engine whining. She had no intention of stopping,” Desmarais said.
“It was unbelievable. She was flying. She didn’t stop for nothing,” said Todd Halman, 41, a Rhode Island construction worker doing a job at the fire station.
Once on airport property, she drove straight through the grassy median. Yesterday afternoon the grass still bore several sets of tire tracks from the woman and the pursuing vehicles.
Within seconds of her capture, a SWAT team arrived. Armed officers fanned out along the perimeter fence, Desmarais said.
“They had their guns on us,” he said.
Timpson, who works at Cushcraft, witnessed the event from a slight hill overlooking the security checkpoint.
The driver, she said, stared straight ahead with a determined look on her face while gripping the steering wheel with both hands as she sped past the gate as Secret Service agents, sheriffs deputies and police tried to stop her.
“I don’t know if she was on a suicide mission or what she was thinking,” said Timpson.
Another witness said the woman appeared to be “smiling” when she made the U-turn in front of the fire station.
Conery, who said he was standing about 25 feet away from the woman when she first turned onto Harvey Road, said she appeared “altered or intoxicated.”
She was “hunkered down” in the car, steering with one hand and appeared to have a cigarette in one hand, he said.
“But when she came back and drove straight through, it was almost like she knew what she was doing,” he said.
Dillon said all standard procedures were followed during yesterday’s “incident” and resulted in the quick apprehension of the driver.
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