April 25--The state vehicle carrying Gov. John Kasich was crunched in the middle of a minor four-vehicle accident near Downtown yesterday.
The responding Columbus police officer? None other than Officer Robert Barrett -- the same Officer Barrett whom Kasich called "an idiot" last year.
What are the odds?
Kasich spokesman Rob Nichols said no one was seriously hurt when a charter bus crashed into a car on I-71 northbound just south of the Town Street overpass about 4:40 p.m., setting off a chain reaction that swallowed Kasich's state-owned Chevy Suburban.
Barrett, who's assigned to work second shift for the Columbus Police Division's freeway division, arrived on the scene to investigate. He spoke with members of the State Highway Patrol assigned to Kasich's detail but not to the governor himself, according to both the patrol and Columbus police.
"I talked to the officer, told him I am going to take the governor and the passengers and continue home, and that the driver was going to stay to answer any additional questions," Patrol Lt. Patrick Kellum said late last night. Kellum is a supervisor for Kasich's security detail who had been called to the scene as well.
Earlier yesterday, sources within the police department had said the patrol had already taken Kasich away when Barrett arrived.
"They got tossed around pretty good, but everyone's fine," Nichols said of the state employees inside the SUV, which included Kasich aide John Wickham and deputy press secretary Connie Wehrkamp.
Nichols said Kasich would be seen by his doctor as a precaution.
It was Barrett whom Kasich thrice called an idiot during a January 2011 meeting with most of the state's Environmental Protection Agency employees. Kasich made the reference while rehashing how Barrett pulled him over in 2008 on Rt. 315 for not moving over for a stopped emergency vehicle with its lights flashing.
The governor apologized to Barrett in a face-to-face meeting in February 2011.
After The Dispatch learned of Barrett's assignment to the crash, Jim Gilbert, president of the city's police union, said Barrett "is a professional law-enforcement officer who will do his due diligence to interact with the governor and everyone involved in the accident."
Gilbert said Barrett simply responded to an accident report on his police scanner and "had no idea he was responding to a crash involving the governor."
Kasich was in Zanesville yesterday afternoon for a groundbreaking with Halliburton for the company's transportation hub in the Utica shale region.Nichols said he does not expect Kasich to cancel either of his two scheduled speaking engagements today in Columbus.
@joevardon
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