Posted on 10/05/2007 4:11:07 AM PDT by Erik Latranyi
NEW YORK (CBS) ― CBS 2 HD has obtained surveillance video showing three different angles of last week's arrest of Carol Anne Gotbaum at Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix.
The video shows the daughter-in-law of New York City Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum reacting after learning she had missed her flight. It also shows Phoenix police officers move in on her, take her to the ground and arrest her.
Different angles show officers taking Gotbaum to a holding cell, where she later died mysteriously.
On the morning of Sept. 29, Gotbaum left her Upper West Side home, brought her children to school and flew off to Arizona. Plagued by a history of drinking and depression, she headed for an alcohol rehabilitation program in Tucson.
She landed in Phoenix at approximately 1:15 p.m. Arizona time.
"I know when she landed in Phoenix, she was stone-cold sober," said Gotbaum family attorney Michael Manning. "She got off the plane, called her husband, confident, committed, excited."
With 90 minutes to go for her connecting flight, Gotbaum went to eat lunch at the airport.
"We don't know whether she was drinking at lunch. We're going to find that out," said Manning.
Then she arrived for her connecting flight to Tucson. But she was too late. According to one witness who preferred to be unnamed, she became hysterical.
"She got her cell phone, broke it on a couple of customers, hit hem, threw it on her," said the witness.
At 2:49 pm, Phoenix Police received got a radio call about a woman who was "loud and disturbing." Within minutes, officers were struggling to subdue her.
She was arrested at 2:53 p.m. One officer used a knee to her back.
"She was screaming 'You're hurting me!'" recalled another witness. "The handcuffs are too tight on me!'"
Some speculate that could have been Gotbaum's fatal moment.
"When a person is lying prone and someone is lying on the back of the person, the person can't breathe," said former NYPD Captain Edward Mamet.
That's known as compressional asphyxia. Her attorney says the police could have killed Gotbaum right then and there.
"The witnesses that saw her just before she went into the holding tank say she was completely listless and unconscious," said Manning.
But according to police: "No one got hurt. The officers picked Ms. Gotbaum up on her feet and two officers then began to escort her to a holding area."
Police say Gotbaum then refused to allow them to search her. They chained her, handcuffed, to a bench. And then they left her alone.
According to police: "Officers felt due to their experience and the actions that had taken place Ms. Gotbaum was not a threat to others or to herself."
But they were wrong. At 3:29 p.m., Gotbaum was discovered dead. Police say she strangled herself with her chain. Her lawyer isn't so sure.
"It's pretty clear that somehow, some way, somebody used that chain around her neck," said Manning.
Police say they didn't know anything about her history of drinking or mental illness, and that they handled the case by the book.
I knew that there had to be more to the story....the pictures and discription of the little homemaker from New York was too disjointed..now we find there may have been drinking involved ...kinda like when a kid dies in a fight..he was always such a good kid....
I’m a bit baffled at why this is such a major news story.
First, many people think airport security is over the top. (I don't and I fly every week)
Second, many people miss connections and feel the airlines don't give a damn about it.
Third, Gotbaum has been portrayed as this innocent, svelte home-maker by the media. If you listen to the report, they make her out to be oh-so-sweet. The truth is she had alchol and depression issues her whole life. She drank at the airport bar and missed her connection because of her drinking, not because she was late arriving.
Lastly, Gotbaum is a very connected NY labor family: read liberal.
They showed the video of her arrest on FOX a while ago. It showed them standing her up after they got her handcuffed and then walking with her down the passageway. She did not seem listless and they weren’t holding her up. They walked at a normal pace. The quality of the video wasn’t good, but she seemed fine.
Oh, I hadn’t really paid much attention to who she was really. Makes more sense now.
Her lawyer is either an idiot OR a lier. The police DO handcuff EVERYONE they have in custody even when they are ‘emotionally distraught’. I have worked in ER for over 20 years, and EVERY time they have brought someone to the ER in this condition ( drunk ,high, out of control, screaming, yelling , spitting AND resisting) they come in in cuffs, and now with “spit masks” frequently on. Once they get in the ER WE then place them in 4 point leather restraints frequently in order to control them.
This was a tragic accident but MOST of the blame is with the woman who could not control herself, AND HER oh so “concerned” family who let this unstable time bomb fly UNACCOMPANIED across the country.
It surely would seem so ... they just happened to come across a copy of the concourse video and note the title calls it "last moments." They sure jumped to a conclusion there. Note how now it isn't the woman's fault at all. The strong implication is that the cops killed ger during the takedown and the rest of the time was spend fabricating a cover-up. Dubya SeeBS. Yep.
I saw the film too, and she seemed to be quite combative and wasn’t being docile at all. Looks as though the cops got it right in this case, and it is sad no-one from her family went with her to help her in a very trying time in her life. (She was going to alcohol rehab facility in Tucson.) Family must have been too busy being democratic politicians to care for their own, and are laying off the blame for her death on the cops. Another load of horsesh.. from New York for the rest of the world to handle.
Because the OJ trial is months away and things are pretty quiet between Britney and K-fed right now. They have to fill the time with something.
Yeah, me too. Drunks die in jail drunk tanks every day. Choke on their own vomit, hang themselves with their underwear, etc. What’s the hubbub, Bub?
Betsy and Victor Gotbaum are People Who Matter. When PWMs or their family members die in drunk tanks, it is big news.
Me too. I guess it is like being a Cleveland Browns fan. If you don’t get it, well, you just don’t get it.
Isn’t it less than an hour to drive from Phoenix to Tucson?
I agree with some other posts on this thread. There are two classes of people in this country- the oligarachy and everyone else.
When weird stuff happens to the oligarachy the rest of us are in mortal peril.
Remember, Vince Foster was unquestionably a suicide!
Best regards,
I think you will find that some people matter more than others regardless of where you go. It's not an American thing.
And there you have it. Either they couldn't care less or they'd given up on her and didn't want to deal with whatever she was bound to dish up on the way to the treatment center, if she really ever entended to get there.
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