FORT WORTH - Secret Service agents who said they
were escorting one of President
Bush's daughters picked up a TCU student early
Sunday from the county jail after his
arrest for public intoxication, Sheriff Dee Anderson
said Wednesday.
Anderson said William Ashe Bridges, 18, was polite
and courteous, but also
"very intoxicated" and "very vocal" in saying
that he was Jenna Bush's boyfriend.
He was placed in a cell alone, to ensure his safety,
for about four hours, then allowed to
make a call from his cellular telephone, the
sheriff said.
Anderson said jail officials believe that he called for Jenna Bush and her Secret Service escort.
"A few minutes later, a black Suburban and some
Secret Service agents showed up,"
Anderson said, adding that jail personnel were
told Jenna Bush was in the Suburban.
Bridges, a TCU freshman, entered the vehicle and "they were on their way," the sheriff said.
When contacted Wednesday night by phone, Bridges
said, at first, that "it wasn't really a big deal."
He refused to discuss the events further. "I
guess I really don't want to say anything," he said.
The White House also declined to discuss Jenna
Bush's friendship with Bridges, or whether she was
at a weekend party near Texas Christian University
that was halted by police and Texas Alcholic
Beverage Commission officers. Claire Buchan,
a White House spokeswoman, said:
"We are not going to have a
comment."
Editor's Note: And of course, the press would never ask about anything
that might embarrass the thief who stole the White House from us.
Officers arrived at the private residence in the
2700 block of Sandage Avenue shortly
after midnight on Sunday after receiving complaints
of loud music and beer bottles in the
yard and the street, TABC Sgt. Robert Cloud said.
Cloud said he arrived at the scene and was told
of reports that "Jenna Bush was there
and the Secret Service was up the road." He said
he didn't see the agents or Bush.
Once Bridges was placed in custody, Cloud said,
"he asked initially if Jenna was all right.
He told me they had gone to high school together
in Austin and were friends."
A young woman was also arrested at the party,
because her driver's license was thought
to be fake, and a young man -- believed to be
one of the party's hosts -- was taken into
custody on a charge of providing alcohol to minors,
Cloud said.
Jenna Bush, 19, a freshman at the University of
Texas at Austin, could not be reached to
comment.
Bridges' father, Austin surgeon Robert Bridges,
said that his son and Bush were "just
friends," and that he was not aware of any "boyfriend-
girlfriend kind of relationship." They
have known each other since both began high school
in Austin, the elder Bridges said.
Robert Bridges said he was not aware of his son's arrest. "We're disappointed," he said.
A charge of public intoxication is a Class C misdemeanor
punishable by a maximum fine
of $500. While it is handled as a written citation,
offenders, if considered a risk to
themselves or others, are often taken to jail
to sober up, Cloud said.
Anderson said jail staff members notified him
that they might have a close friend of the
president's daughter in custody. "My instructions
to them was to treat him just like any
other prisoner, [and] be sure to keep him safe,"
the sheriff said.
Jailers were, at first, skeptical when Bridges
described himself as Bush's boyfriend,
Anderson said. They changed their minds, however,
once the prisoner made his call and
the black Suburban pulled up. "I think they became
fairly convinced fairly quickly that they [
the agents] were the real people when they showed
up," Anderson said.
He said Bridges was kept in the jail for four
hours, which he called plenty of time for the
teen-ager to sober up. According to an offense
report, Bridges was officially booked in at
2:58 a.m. Sunday and released just less than
three hours later, at 5:46 a.m.
In an interview in December 1999, early in the
presidential campaign, George W. Bush
acknowledged concerns about the privacy of his
twin daughters Jenna and Barbara.
Barbara Bush is a freshman at Yale University.
"One of my great hesitancies about making this
race is I really don't want their lives to be
affected by me, and I know it's going to be,"
Bush said then. "It is something that troubles
me because I love them and I can understand,"
he said.