Posted on 10/05/2007 9:11:23 PM PDT by LdSentinal
Last Nov. 1, Noah Gotbaum phoned his father and stepmother to say that he had just discovered his wife, Carol, drunk and passed out in their town house on West 95th Street. An ambulance, he told them, was rushing her to St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center.
He asked them to come watch his three young children, Ella, 7, Nathaniel, 5, and Tobias, 3. His stepmother, Betsy Gotbaum, who is the New York City public advocate, has been married to Victor Gotbaum, the former labor leader, for 30 years and has close relations with his children and grandchildren — particularly Noah’s children, who for the past few years have lived near her.
Carol Gotbaum spent one night at the hospital. Betsy Gotbaum saw her in the emergency room after she awoke. “I’m ashamed of myself,” Carol Gotbaum told her.
The night marked the first knowledge Betsy Gotbaum had of her stepdaughter-in-law’s struggles with alcoholism and depression, she said in an extensive interview on Wednesday.
On Sept. 27, Carol Gotbaum agreed to fly to Arizona and spend a month at Cottonwood de Tucson, an expensive but spare addiction-treatment clinic. Other, briefer stints in rehabilitation facilities had apparently failed.
The decision set in motion a chain of events that left Carol Ann Gotbaum dead at 45 and gave rise to a number of questions about her treatment at the hands of the police in Arizona.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Perhaps if she was so suicidal and depressed, someone should have accompanied her on this trip.
Of cour$e he ha$.
Not.
She was a psychotic alcoholic and she died from her alcoholic stupidity. Sad story for her children, family, and friends, but she was the captain of her out-of-control ship. No one is responsible for her demise but herself, regardless of what money grubbing lawyers say.
So, the husband knew she was suicidal.
So, why did the family allow her to travel to rehab on her own?
Lots of blame to share here with lots of people. Her husband should have escorted her.
I personally liked the "knowing" insinuations and outright accusations of my fellow freepers about the police and security officers involved in this woman's self inflicted death. Such experts also were prevalent around the time of the Virginia Tech shooting, throwing around talk that it was obviously a covered up terrorist attack. Funny how these bomb-throwers disappear back into their basements as details of the story get out.
I think the cops should have been monitoring her. She was panicky, upset and barely lucid, and they leave her alone, shacled to a bench, in handcuffs?
They arrested her, they had the responsibility to watch her.
Ed
No kidding. These relatives all knew she was a raging alcoholic and totally unstable, but sent her off on this trip alone anyway, and now they’re mad a police — who had no clue as to this woman’s background — because they left her unattended for a few minutes and she killed herself!
Sadly, I think her family is much better off without her. It’s rare for people to actually get their alcoholism under control after becoming this far gone, and even in those rare cases nearly always involves a series of relapses along the way. The three kids would just have been repeatedly traumatized if they’d grown up with their mother around. The family should grieve, have a funeral, and move on. Dwelling on building a legal and PR(!) case that it’s all the police officers’ fault that she died is counterproductive — won’t bring her back, and will delay the process of moving on.
Well actually, the cops did break basic and fundamental rules about leaving a deranged suspect alone while cuffed.
Even a rookie should know better.
Having said this, I am neither excusing airport security and the cops nor defending them.
Just pointing out a major screw-up.
No doubt, she should not have been left alone. The police certainly didn’t want this outcome, but they aren’t miracle workers.
They didn’t leave her alone for very long, and checked on her as soon as she went quiet. Frankly, there are much higher priorities for airport LEOs than babysitting self-destructive lunatics who are safely (for everybody else in the airport) cuffed and shackled in a holding cell.
There are witnesses to the situation, and I haven't seen one mention any sort of brutality or mistreatment by the officers. The family is having a hard time dealing with their loved one's death, but blaming the police isn't making them look any more wise in their decision to let her travel alone.
That said, I agree that this woman should have received standard monitoring. IMO, this wouldn’t mean minute by minute surveillance, and the story does not go into this aspect, but I would imagine that she did receive standard monitoring, and that she strangled herself anyway. Too bad, end of story.
It would be a grave injustice if the citizens of Phoenix have to pay even one cent to this suicidal alcoholic dingbat's family.
-ccm
Perhaps if she was so suicidal and depressed, someone should have accompanied her on this trip.
The sad fact of the matter could be that she was traveling alone because she drove everybody away.
I see from your posts that compassion is not your strong point.
That was my point. The original threads were peppered with statements and insinuations by freepers that the police murdered the woman. I find such reckless bomb throwing by the proverbial pajama'ed blogger in his basement, claiming superior insight to those actually at the scene, to be worth calling out when they're shown to be wrong.
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