Woman Dies After Airport Arrest

[Ghost in the Machine]

Woman Dies After Airport Arrest
Published: 9/30/07, 4:05 AM EDT
By BOB CHRISTIE

PHOENIX (AP) - 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.

http://home.bellsouth.net/s/editorial.dll?pnum=1&bfromind=7406&eeid=5438525&_sitecat=1522&dcatid=0&eetype=article&render=y&ac=2&ck=&ch=ne&rg=blsadstrgt&_lid=332&_lnm=tg+ne+topnews&ck=

[pnwmom]

1. Why did she need handcuffs inside a cell? n/t

[MNDemNY]

21. So she couldn't kill herself....Dah!

[LiberalHeart]

23. Look who her mother-in-law is...

I'll bet she'll get to the bottom this (she's the Public Advocate for NYC):

http://pubadvocate.nyc.gov/

[LiberalHeart]

25. More on the woman's family...

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE0DB113FF932A25755C0A963958260

[orleans]

2. cuffs around her neck? how the fuck do you do that?

i guess if someone is screaming and you wish they'd shut up, and you wish REALLY HARD they will strangle themselves with handcuffs. (and then you could hear a pin drop. poof! all quiet now)

[Cooley Hurd]

4. Something is SO not right about this...

How the hell does one strangle themselves with handcuffs??:shrug::mad:

[Mythsaje]

3. Move along...nothing to see here.

We're busy protecting and serving.

[Cha]

24. And tasering.

[LeftHander]

5. This is total crap...they killed her...nt

[malaise]

7. That's an understatement

This is undiluted fuckery. Someone is responsible for this woman's death. I'm betting she had a heart attack.

[Zodiak]

6. I do not believe the story about the handcuffs.

I cannot think of any position a person could put themselves in trying to get handcuffs off that would result in choking to death.

I can, however, think of choke-holds used to force compliance and to "shut a person up" that would do the trick.

[knitter4democracy]

14. I can't either.

If they were behind her back and she was freaking out, she still couldn't get them at her throat.

A total lie here.

[MilesColtrane]

20. Here's the only way I could think of...

Grab the back of your right shoulder with your left hand. (your left arm is now going across the front of your body with your elbow directly in front of your throat)

Now put your right hand behind your back so that the back of your right hand is against the small of your back.

Now push your hands as close to each other as you can against your back as if they were connected at the wrists.

This tightens your left arm against your neck.

That might do it.

But, I have to say, I have no idea how it is possible to get from cuffed with both hands behind the back to this position.

[MadHound]

8. Having been in my fair share of handcuffs,

I would have to question this story about the cuffs. If the woman was cuffed from the front, there is no need to bring them up to her throat area in order to free herself. If she was cuffed from the rear, there is still no need to bring them up around your throat area, since you'll dislocate both shoulders in the process. It is much easier to take the cuffs down around the feet and up in front of you rather than over your head.

Besides, why the hell did she have cuffs on in her cell for? SOP is that there is no metal in a cell, thus no cuffs.

Something's not right about this, not right at all.

[mnhtnbb]

9. This could have been me...

I was so pissed at American at O'Hare a year ago. We had no pilot for our flight out of LAX and sat waiting
for him to drive up from San Diego. We were assured by flight crew that our connecting flights would wait
for us at O'Hare. I RAN to my connecting flight and got there just as they were closing the gate. Plane was still there and continued to be there for 15 minutes while I begged, pleaded, cried for them to let me on--and I was flying first class. Talk about unempathic. I asked for a supervisor and got ZERO response.
Of course, I ended up in an airport hotel, overnight, getting up at 4 a.m. to make the first flight out.'

I guess I was lucky they didn't call airport security, because I was really carrying on and really pissed.
Incompetent, lying a$$holes.

[KittyWampus]

10. Choke Hold Killed Her

[burythehatchet]

11. I think a senate sub-committee should be convened

to look into the scourge of people choking on handcuffs. How many times must it happen before something is done. Who are we, as a nation?

(note: I've never before heard of someone choking on their own handcuffs. Someone is guilty of murder in the first degree.)

[ThatsMyBarack]

12. Is somebody putting in a 9/11 excuse for this?

I wouldn't be surprised. Seems to me that anyone trying to board a plane is a criminal suspect these days....

[BlooInBloo]

13. i LOVE cops!

[ThatsMyBarack]

19. They taste like chicken!

:9

[FloridaJudy]

15. What the...

That sounds physically impossible, unless she was Origami Woman.

Something stinks about this.

[Annces]

16. Very suspicious n/t

[dailykoff]

17. tomorrow we'll hear that she threatened to blow up the airport

and they "cuffed" her as a terrorist precaution. Couldn't be helped.

[pnwmom]

26. with a circuit board and a battery that lit up some LED lights. n/t

[Solly Mack]

18. uh...

uh

sniff - sniff

stinks

[Richard Steele]

22. Murder. K&R