John Bryson, U.S. Commerce Secretary, cited in Calif. hit-and-run

[American Patriot]

June 11, 2012 4:04 AM



John Bryson, U.S. Commerce Secretary, cited in Calif. hit-and-run


Play CBS News Video

Updated at 8:34 a.m. ET

(CBS News) U.S. Secretary of Commerce John Bryson has been cited in a felony hit-and-run case after allegedly crashing a Lexus into two vehicles in California Saturday evening, Los Angeles police have confirmed.


According to the written statement by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, Bryson, 68, was allegedly behind the wheel of a Lexus that rear-ended another vehicle waiting for a train to pass in the city of San Gabriel at around 5:05 p.m. PT. The statement says Bryson spoke with the three males in the other car, then allegedly drove away, hitting their Buick again in the process.


Bryson was then "found alone and unconscious behind the wheel of his vehicle," after allegedly causing another accident in the neighboring city of Rosemead about five minutes later.


Police say that while Bryson has now been formally cited in the hit-and-run, it will be up to the district attorney's office to decide whether formal criminal charges should be filed.


Only minor injuries were reported in the other vehicles involved in both accidents.


According to a spokeswoman for the Commerce Department, Bryson was admitted to hospital but released after the accidents.


"He has sustained no injuries and the investigation is ongoing," spokeswoman Jennifer Friedman told CBS News. Neither the Commerce Department nor the White House offered any further comment on the incident.


According to the police statement, which said the investigation was still in its preliminary stages, there were no signs that drug or alcohol use played a role in the crashes.


CBS News correspondent Bill Whitaker reports that it was the three men in the Buick, involved in the first accident, who called police as they followed Bryson's vehicle from the scene.


The Commerce Department's profile of Bryson, who has been the president's commerce secretary since October 2011, describes him as, "a key member of President Obama's economic team working to implement the administration's top economic priority: accelerating job creation. He works to strengthen the economic recovery and U.S. competitiveness, and he serves as the voice for the business community in the President's Cabinet."


Bryson was in California to give a commencement address.

[American Patriot]

FNC reporting that he might have had a stroke or something similar.

Police are NOT giving that information out, it was only a "supposition" on the part of the FNC team.

[American Patriot]

Sounding like this guy suffered from a seizure.

[Malsua]

I want to know how you can have a seizure and hit someone, then drive off, hit someone miles away and only THEN pass out?

Did the seizure start at Moe's?

[Malsua]

He's the guy on the left.

[American Patriot]

U.S. Commerce Secretary Takes Medical Leave After Car Accident


William McQuillen and James Nash, ©2012 Bloomberg News
Tuesday, June 12, 2012



June 12 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. Commerce Secretary John Bryson announced last night he was taking a medical leave of absence, two days after being treated for a seizure following a series of minor traffic accidents. "Effective immediately I am taking a medical leave of absence so that I can focus all of my attention on resolving the health issues that arose over the weekend," Bryson said in a statement released by his office last night. He transferred his duties to Deputy Commerce Secretary Rebecca Blank, an economist whom he named as acting secretary.
Bryson, 68, was found unconscious in his Lexus about 5:10 p.m. Los Angeles time on June 9, after the second of two collisions, police said. He had a seizure, went to a hospital for observation and was back at work in Washington yesterday, Jennifer Friedman, a Commerce Department spokeswoman, said in a statement.


The Commerce secretary, whose agency has 47,000 employees and a $7.5 billion budget, drove his car into the rear of stopped vehicle and five minutes later struck another car two miles away. Police are investigating possible felony hit-and-run charges, which can result in at least a year in prison upon conviction, the police said. Authorities tested his blood for alcohol, and said results are pending.


"If they come back benign, there probably won't be any charges as far as the sheriff's department is concerned," Steve Whitmore, a Los Angeles County sheriff spokesman, said in an interview. San Gabriel Police also would probably forgo filing charges if medical conditions contributed to the incident, said Lieutenant Ariel Duran.

'Appeared Disoriented'

Bryson "appeared disoriented" after his car rear-ended a Buick that had stopped to wait for a train to clear a four-lane road east of downtown Los Angeles in San Gabriel, said police officials, citing the occupants of the Buick. Bryson struck the vehicle a second time as he left the scene, prompting the Buick's driver to follow and call the 911 emergency line.


After driving south for about 1.9 miles, Bryson struck a Honda Accord in Rosemead, California, about 5:10 p.m., causing minor injuries to the passengers. He was found alone and unconscious at the scene by police.


There was no indication alcohol or drugs were involved, police said.


A decision by the sheriff's department against filing hit- and-run charges may leave Bryson open to other penalties. In California, a driver who has lapses of consciousness can have his license revoked or suspended.



Drivers can be placed on probation, which lets the Department of Motor Vehicles monitor a driver's medical condition, according to the agency website.

'Medical Condition'

White House spokesman Jay Carney said last night that President Barack Obama's "thoughts are with Secretary Bryson and his family during this time," according to a statement.


"Secretary Bryson assured the White House that the Commerce Department staff will not miss a beat in their work helping America's businesses compete," Carney said.


Bryson has told colleagues never had a seizure before, according to a Commerce Department official who requested anonymity.




Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy Mark Pope said authorities were told Bryson suffers from a medical condition that is considered relevant by investigators. He said he had no details of the condition and could not say if it causes seizures.


During an interview yesterday with KTIV, an NBC affiliate in Sioux City, Iowa, before Bryson announced his leave, Obama said, "It sounds like it was health-related in some way, but we're going to make sure that obviously he gets the best care and we'll be able to make a determination from there."

Locke's Successor

Bryson was in California, where he owns a house, to speak at the June 7 commencement for the Polytechnic School in Pasadena, which his four children attended. Bryson and his wife, Louise, have been board members, said Leslie Carmell, a spokeswoman for the school.
Bryson became Commerce secretary after Gary Locke took over as U.S. ambassador to China.


Blank served as acting secretary for several months last year after Locke's departure and before Bryson took office. She has worked for the agency since 2009, when she was named under secretary for economic affairs and head of the Economics and Statistics Administration. ESA oversees the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Prior to arriving at the Commerce Department, Blank was a senior fellow at the Washington-based Brookings Institution and dean of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. She has also been an economics professor at Northwestern University.

Doubling Exports

Bryson's agency is under pressure to deliver on Obama's goal of doubling annual U.S. exports to $3.14 trillion by the end of 2014 from $1.57 trillion in 2009, according to a White House report to Congress last year.
Bryson joined Edison International, based in Rosemead and owner of electric power generation facilities, in 1984 and was named chairman and CEO in 1990. He retired in 2008. In September 2010, he became chairman of BrightSource Energy Inc., an Oakland, California-based developer of solar-power plants. The company tapped a $1.6 billion loan from the U.S. government in 2011 to build its Ivanpah project in the Mojave Desert.



--With assistance from Hans Nichols, Roger Runningen, Jim Snyder, Margaret Talev and Leslie Hoffecker in Washington and John Lauerman in Boston. Editors: Jon Morgan, Michael Shepard

To contact the reporters on this story: William McQuillen in Washington at bmcquillen@bloomberg.net; James Nash in Los Angeles at jnash24@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jon Morgan at jmorgan97@bloomberg.net




Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...#ixzz1xaEnJEXQ

[Ryan Ruck]