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.
#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.
#41 – My understanding was that before they officially opened the Denver Airport, they discovered a problem with the runways that required re-paving so it would be safe to put a jumbo jet down on it.
OhForTheLoveOf
The problem was in the men’s room. The floor was initially rubber and instead of frantic taping by the horny, it was a symphony of squeaks.
39–An attractive divorced mother of one told me that I had a “White Knight Syndrome” and that I needed to save people. I asked her why she thought I was attracted to her. She became insulted and left. Oh My!!!!
Some truth to that. But initial attraction has always been physical. After that, everyone has good and bad qualities. I tend to focus on the good until the bad predominate.
Question to her: “Gee, aren’t you being a bit passive-agressive?” Yes, I’m the Queen of Passive Agressive. Oh My!!!! So, I’ve learned to spot the bad a little bit sooner and try to minimize it in myself.
So why do you blog? – – Oh My!!!!!! Its an acquired taste.
– – – – -and so it goes.
So, yes, I think that woman was being a bitch at the airport. If anyone would rather say she was upset and being unreasonable===same thing. Most words gain most of their meaning from their context.
40. ““Woman killed by airport security” Where do you find the rationale for that conclusion/accusation?”
It’s fixed.
Sounds like she was murdered to shut her up. A cover up of a murder.
Only in America could some woman think that missing a flight be enough to become irate about and then act like the whole world revolved around her enough to create a scene and become a drunk, irrational moron.
So she strangles herself? How sad….and yet….it’s not that sad.
I mean, I guess it could be sad if she was chamically imbalanced and half off her rocker….but this stinks of a spoiled-brat bitch who thought the world was hers.. That she was above all those “lowely” airline workers and how dare they delay her all important life! How dare she be inconvenienced! For she is the most important person in that airport and how dare they not know it!
While working in the service industry I came acrossed many, many people like her. So, you’ll have to pardon me while I chuckle a little that one of them acted like this and paid the ultimate price for self-righteous stupidity…..