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.
Rube Goldberg couldn’t dream up an outlandish illustration to explain this.
Hysterical…I never understood the meaning of that until I once saw a woman who put a handbag down to save a parking space and could not believe that someone had the gall to park a car there. She went off towards a local information attendant (me, college job) an no piece of logic or reason would calm her down…I can just picture this woman doing something similar…
I have to agree… Not only is that a picture of a very unattractive skank, but DU’s attempts to follow Maxim magazine’s publishing standards sometimes results in wildly inappropriate pictures.
Please note: as a First Amendment absolutist, I will steadfastly defend your right to publish wildly inappropriate pictures while simultaneously complaining about the wildly inappropriate pictures.
She was trying to get on the flight because she had only a limited amount of time to get back to New York to pay off a drug-lord who was going to kill her 2 kids and then her if she didn’t. After she missed the flight she knew it was too late to save them and she choked herself. Law enforcement is not to blame. Of course this is all speculation.
#2 – Hysterical…
Yep… That’s always been my reaction to the untimely death of a stranger.
In the old days she would have been smacked resulting in her regaining her composure. Today, since the law has provided everyone with untouchable rights, she is dead. Blame the feminist movement.
I completely accept the possibility that the full facts of the case may make me sympathetic towards this woman, and her family already has my sympathies.
Having said that, I just have this mental image of every self-important bitch* I’ve ever encountered in public who has contributed nothing to the universe and is better off dead than roaming around expressing her displeasure with reality.
*I’m not using the word “bitch” as a synonym for “woman.” I’m talking about those people who truly deserve the label.
I just want to know how someone could choke themselves while being handcuffed behind their back.
#8 Or in front, as the case may be. Further speculation on my part.
#8 From the way I read another report on the story she was obvioulsy very bendy but not bendy enough.
Sure, Christine Aguilera is a great sort of illustration for a woman now dead in the hands of police custody.
Good job. Why don’t you just put plain old porn pics up there?
You have the morals of a pigeon.
Dvorak– this is certainly the way to increase your credibility. If a mid-life illustration crisis won’t do it, then perhaps the next best thing is wearing ‘skin’ on your blog site.
How could anyone choke themselves with handcuffs? The ones I have seen on tv are 4-5 inches apart?
I would love to see a movie of the week regarding this woman. Was she always this way or what drove her decline. Crazy people are not interesting to me. Crazy people who still are nominally functional are of interest to me. I always wonder if some of my disfunctional girlfriends ultimately wound up this way. I’d like to know about them as well?
All I can think of is that she dislocated one shoulder, rolled it over in the socket to get that arm up, then tried to dislocate the other shoulder so she could drag that one up. That’s how escape artists work it.
But I still cannot picture how that choked her. Maybe she put a sleeper hold on herself, tilted her head too far one way and the cuffs put pressure on the other side of the neck. I knew a guy that killed himself that way reaching into a boat bilge.
Apparently she was heading to alcohol detox facility. Combine that with PMS and you probably have a pretty mean biatch.
#3
Milk out of my nose.
They are liable period. You normally take the cuffs off when you lock someone up. For obvious reasons. Chimps with guns and badges.
Well, I have no idea how this really happened and agree that it would be hard to choke oneself with handcuffs that are on your wrists. The only good thing I can find in this story is that, for the time being, we’re still hearing about this sort of thing when it happens, at least sometimes.
Here’s a more detailed article from The New York Times describing the situation.
Handcuffed and shackled in a holding cell. This sounds bad to me. I’m with maddmaxx. Why not take off the cuffs once you’re putting her in a cell. Did the 110 pound woman appear to be so strong that she could rip off a locked door?
17–Thanks Scott==The movie script is all right there isn’t it?
The spin from the family is interesting to read.
How liable “should” anyone be for suicidal types? eg–should a cop be required to constantly monitor arrested folks or should “shackles” be so restrictive as to make suicides impossible but normal folks very uncomfortable in their restrictiveness?
I basically think only reasonable steps should be taken and that suicides should basically be responsible for themselves.
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? because they’re not following what is considered to be the standard norm in human behavior. In particular this woman deserved her demise because she was a “bitch”, correct? My argument is that you cannot apply Constitutional liberties conditionally.
#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.