Here’s a story guaranteed to make you lose sleep, courtesy of NYDailyNews.com
The daughter-in-law of one of New York’s top officials screamed, “I’m not a terrorist!” and fought with security officials in the Phoenix airport before being wrestled to the ground and handcuffed, witnesses told the Daily News yesterday.
Carol Anne Gotbaum, 45, of the upper West Side, died less than an hour later, after cops claim she apparently strangled herself while trying to escape from the handcuffs in a holding cell at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.
“I’m not a terrorist! I’m a sick mom! I need help!” yelled the mother of three after she missed the 2:58 p.m. US Airways Express flight to Tucson, said airport workers who witnessed the confrontation Friday.
They said one cop put his knee in her back to restrain her while others grabbed her flailing arms.
“I believe she was a little not-there. She kept punching. She kept screaming. She kept kicking,” one worker told The News. “She looked really scared, really frightened. I think she was afraid to go to jail.”
Gotbaum’s husband, Noah, is the son of longtime city labor leader Victor Gotbaum and the stepson of his wife, Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum, a possible candidate for mayor in 2009.
Betsy Gotbaum said her stunned family was still searching for answers in the sudden death.
“Carol was a wonderful, wonderful person,” Betsy Gotbaum said. “She was a wonderful mother. She was sweet and kind and loving. At this moment, we are awaiting the results of the investigation.”
Cops said Gotbaum was traveling alone and could not explain why she was in Phoenix or what prompted her anger. She was charged with disorderly conduct.
Phoenix police spokesman Sgt. Andy Hill said Gotbaum kept screaming after she was placed in the holding cell, until cops realized she had been silent for several minutes and found her unresponsive. The county medical examiner has not determined a cause of death.
“The longest she was alone was five or 10 minutes,” Hill said.
She was handcuffed behind her back, Hill said.
But he couldn’t immediately explain why a distressed woman was left alone in handcuffs while seven police officers were in the security office.
And from a related article, Hil was quoted as saying:
“[She] had possibly tried to manipulate the handcuffs from behind her to the front, got tangled up in the process and they ended up around her neck.”
How exactly does one strangle oneself to death while having one’s hands cuffed behind one’s back? How does that work, Hil?
14 Comments
October 1, 2007 at 9:08 pm
Why on earth would she still be cuffed while in a holding cell??
Cops, you got some splaining to do. Jeebutz.
October 1, 2007 at 9:14 pm
Welcome to Arizona. If you git outta line, we’ll arrest ya, and cuff ya.
C’mon its Arizona.
October 1, 2007 at 9:15 pm
This shit has gone too far. Now that a white woman related to a prominent family has died a tragic death, will the sheeple begin to pay attention?
October 1, 2007 at 9:16 pm
Gross negligence.
October 1, 2007 at 9:28 pm
Damn, how many more will die or dissapear before this madness is over…….Blessings, we need them.
October 1, 2007 at 10:25 pm
Yes, strange story, I’ve been followin it last 2 days or so. Initially the story was framed in such a way, that the woman was flipping out and was just crazy.
October 1, 2007 at 10:31 pm
Maybe she was flipping out because she was cuffed and dragged into a room.
October 1, 2007 at 10:54 pm
I heard somewhere that she was on her way to alcohol rehab which would explain why she was a little stressed. Perhaps she didn’t want to show up at rehab wasted and was detoxing.
October 1, 2007 at 10:55 pm
Obviously she was having some kind of anxiety attack and should have been watched. If she was a convicted murderer she’d be on watch.
October 1, 2007 at 11:55 pm
Obviously they sat on her in the jail and suffocated her.
Fly the friendly skies.
October 1, 2007 at 11:58 pm
In my past experience, usually these types of cases turn out to be the result of being piled on.
If you’re a grown man, and you have ample teammembers around you, you DON’T put your knee in the back of someones mom.
Nazi pigs act that way, but not good men.
October 2, 2007 at 12:12 am
Great to see some people at the Zoo! It’s been a quiet couple of days.
Sorry, but I have to go to bed. I hope to see all of you tomorrow.
October 2, 2007 at 6:33 am
Unbelievable. I’m speechless.
October 2, 2007 at 10:29 pm
probably a dead thread, but something i was wondering…
i’d always understood that one could not strangle one’s self – unless using gravity or some force –
because you would pass out first, loosening the tension… i guess there is suffocation…
but there is NO WAY one could get arms positioned from behind to front, while handcuffed, unless one was made of rubber…
this is too weird…
Comments are closed.