A woman late to her plane became irate, was put in handcuffs and was later found dead in a holding cell, police said. Authorities were investigating Saturday if the woman choked herself while trying to get free from the handcuffs.
Carol Ann Gotbaum, 45, of New York, was arrested Friday at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport after a conflict with gate crews who refused to allow her to board a plane, said Sgt. Andy Hill, a Phoenix police spokesman.
The airline said the plane was already preparing to depart. She was rebooked on the next flight, but “she became extremely irate, apparently running up and down the gate area,” US Airways spokesman Derek Hanna said Saturday.
Officers handcuffed her and took her to the holding room, where she kept screaming, authorities said. Hill said officers checked on her when she stopped screaming and found her unresponsive.
Hill said it appears Gotbaum may have tried to get out of her handcuffs, became tangled in the process and the cuffs ended up around her neck. A cause of death will be determined by the Maricopa County Medical Examiner.
#20 – Canook,
I certainly never said that.
#19 – bobbo,
Suicide can be a sane response to one’s situation. Let’s not assume all suicides are by the insane, a legal term rather than a psychological one.
I think that in the case where someone must be restrained, they should be treated with all due respect and care for their lives.
I think that this may not have been such a case. Perhaps psych staff should be on hand when individuals are being restrained for such cases. If we can afford a gazillion hopefully trained rather than overweaponed staff, we should also be able to afford a psychologist on staff.
When someone is locked away for creating a disturbance, a questionable act anyway, they certainly don’t need to be treated in the same way as one might treat a hardened and convicted criminal.
20–She was not unsupervised. She was not left to die. Read the link at #17.
So, while we may all have the same “rights” the individual still retains some responsibility for their own actions?==or just how much of a nanny state do you think you believe in?
21–Scott, right you are. I also think this lady died by self inflicted accident, not suicide, so I apologize for getting the thread off point.
Is suicide ever rational except when something worse or death itself is immiment? –ie, is suicide rational for depression, or sense of hopelessness? I say NO, as life is all we know that exists and rationally getting your emotions in order is the answer rather than giving into current predictaments.
20 – Canook, People are assumed to be responsible for themselves.
Where were her keepers if she was mentally incompetent? Why impose restrictions and expenses on others to safeguard nit wits? Why restrict everyone in case a few are fools? This is not some bush village where everyone knows everyone else, this is the big world. Go find someone who cares about her or your opinion, sniveler.
I’m awaiting further information (and a link to the sign in page for the NYT is useless to me). I MAY change my mind if further information is brought foreward, but the only part that /might/ indicate a failure to take due care is the hand cuffs. The cuffs call for an explanation.
On the other hand, I’ve known some mellow people who went nuts when drunk or on drugs, one a petite lady who it took 5 cops to carry out of the bar. Big cops. If this woman was the same way, then leaving the cuffs on so the cops did not have to brawl with her to get her out of the detainment room makes very good sense.
#12 – I always wonder if some of my disfunctional girlfriends ultimately wound up this way.
It’s been my experience that a string of dysfunctional girlfriends often reveals more about the man than it does any of the women in question.
#20 – Judging by the comments made regarding this story, it would be safe to assume that there is a consensus that if an individual is disgruntled, irate, complaining, and generally unpleasant, that they should be thrown into a jail cell unsupervised, and left to die. Why?
I wonder why myself. My theory is one one those “in today’s world” observations that probably doesn’t reflect reality after passing through the lens of cynicism…
But I tend to see lots of comments by people who find it easy to pass judgment, but hard to imagine what the road feels like under the shoes of those they pass judgment on.
But that is human. What disturbs me more is how easy it is for the death of another to become comedy fodder for YouTube or Ebaums world, as would surely happen to this woman if there had been a surveillance camera on her when she died.
There isn’t very much that I take 100% seriously. I think the healthiest of us can see the humor in almost anything… but the tragic death of someone’s mother, daughter, wife, sister, etc., should be an event that at the very least invokes a thoughtful pause. I don’t expect people to cry over the death of strangers, I just hope they don’t choose to laugh at their death either…
And the feminists will now yap “It’s the men’s fault!” As if women are unable to commit an act of stupidity by themselves.
I’d still like to see a video simulating how somebody could choke themselves to death while their hands were cuffed behind their back.
Short of the “dislocate your shoulders and elbows” explanation, this whole story seems a little hard to believe.
I wonder if she didn’t maybe sass one of the officers while cuffed, and “things got out of control” as they say on Law & Order, and next thing you know, she’s unresponsive. Then dead.
25–OFLO–I welcome your jab at psychoanalysis and if ALL my girlfriends were a bit nuts, I’d look more closely to myself. But alas that is not the case. In truth, not talked about much, but many women I have known well enough had daddy issues. Those that weren’t nuts had strong religious convictions (sic!), or wanted a small family of 4-5 kids. Compatibility and lack there of far more common than neuroses, but neuroses still too common.
27–Mustard==we need a picture of “the shackles” as I assume enough slack there to allow an attempt at movement. But I wonder what the statistics are for “death in custody” compared to control group? I’ll take a wild guess and think its higher?
crazy bitch deserved it
Back in the day, Mississippi and Louisiana had their share of suicides by shotgun blast to the back of the head. The same states each claimed a large number of double jointed darkies.
#23 – bobbo,
Worse than death was exactly what I was referring to. Having watched a close friend die of AIDS in 1990, suicide would have been a rational response. It is also rational for any other terminal illness. Once the pain outweighs the joy, why continue?
#25 – OFTLO,
Humor can be kept somewhat appropriate in some situations. Keep in mind that humor is a defense mechanism. We don’t laugh because we’re happy. We laugh because it hurts. Think of every joke you know that actually made you laugh the first time you heard it (thus puns don’t count), something bad is happening to someone.
The funny bit in that is that I learned it in my teens … from reading Stranger in a Strange Land. There is a scene where Michael finally learns to appreciate humor. It’s a well written scene and makes the point beautifully. Let’s hope that is what this laughter is. Let’s keep it in good taste. Maybe we should point out that waiting a bit helps and that some subjects are too tragic to ever become valid topics for humor, or at least not while they’re in living memory.
I finally tried the link (it says something about “login” so I figured it wanted me to log in). So, there was a /second/ chain involved.
And the detainment room sounds more like a paddy wagon set up, so they can restrain several people at once in one room without worrying about the bunch of them jumping the guard when he opens the door.
I’m still not going to sweat it without more information indicating the people charged with keeping the peace are guilty of some crime other than being cops.
Sounds like the ultimate in poor customer service
Wonder if she got a bonus on her air points for such service
Then again such service in the airline industry is more than standard
Take the bus or drive your car
Forensic expert: Impossible for handcuffed woman to strangle self in airport
http://tinyurl.com/2p9xja
If you for one second believe the “official story” you’re certifiably insane. This woman was strangled…by the policeman. Have you not been paying attention to the events of late. The police are just another gang. Protect and Serve…but not us.
#29 yea and what do you deserve? Everyone, including you, deserves to be treated like a human being.
This sounds fishy to me. If she was indeed irate, she likely had reason. We don’t really have a good airline industry in the U.S. anymore due to deregulation so stuff like this is more common than it use to be (no the dying part though). And with the current climate of fear induced by the neocon fascists people react a little more strongly to odd behavior in airports than they use to. Couple that with the general state of the police having way too much power (which corrupts, don’t you know) and you have a recipe for more and more stories like this to happen every day.
There is something else that is not in the story which changes everything and likely everyone’s reactions here. It may not be reported by the major U.S. yellow journalistic outlets though. #35 probably has it right that the police killed her and are covering up that fact. Suffice it to say they are dolts to begin with by sticking her in an unsupervised area when she clearly needed supervision. And dolts are exactly the bunch we are ending up with in positions of power these days, peter principle and fascist religious indoctrination combining to do so far too often.
Before jumping to any conclusions, I’ll wait for the Medical Examiner’s report on how a person handcuffed behind their back could strangle them self.
An authoritarian personality will believe any story, no matter how outlandish, on the word of a man in uniform. If an mall security officer told them the moon was made of cheese, they would break out their party crackers.
#28 – I ask only this… what do you think attracted you to them in the first place?
#31 – Humor can be kept somewhat appropriate in some situations. Keep in mind that humor is a defense mechanism. We don’t laugh because we’re happy. We laugh because it hurts. Think of every joke you know that actually made you laugh the first time you heard it (thus puns don’t count), something bad is happening to someone.
Of course… What is the difference between the World Trade Towers and Denver International Airport? You can land a plane at the World Trade Towers.
That joke is a lot funnier if you actually recall the news stories about the Denver Airport’s problems when it opened… and it isn’t funny at all if you said it on 9/12/01
We live in a world today where we dance on corpses before they are even cold. It’s mean and heartless, egocentric, and it eats away at the humanity of our civilization like a cancer. And I say this as a guy who makes a lot of “dark” comments about current events and real people.
There are appropriate times for humor. In fact, there are far more appropriate times than many care to admit. But in the absence of information, while steam is still rising from the body, while the children’s eyes are swelled with saline… and especially when odds are that the teller’s agenda is wrong… is not one of those times.
#33 – Thank you.
“Woman killed by airport security”?
Where do you find the rationale for that conclusion/accusation?
“Woman dies while in custody” maybe, but “killed by”?
Denver never had any problems landing planes…it was the baggage system that was the tech joke. BTW DIA is now the fifth busiest in the nation, surpassing LAX.
DIA fifth-busiest airport in June
And no one has died in any gulag holding cells at the airport. Nor has any Senater been seen giving signals in stalls.