Posted on 10/06/2007 12:15:35 PM PDT by yorkie
Carol Gotbaum was already dead by the time her husband, Noah, made frantic telephone calls to the airport where she had been arrested to try to warn the authorities that she was suicidal and alcohol abusive, the Phoenix Police Department said on Friday.
According to preliminary information from the Aviation Communication Center at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, Mr. Gotbaums first call was received at 4:39 p.m., a little more than an hour after his wife had been pronounced dead, said Sgt. Andy Hill, a spokesman for the Phoenix police.
The authorities released a statement Friday night saying that they reviewed all phone calls received by the airport after 12 noon on Sept. 28 and confirmed the time of Mr. Gotbaums first call. This confirms as well that Mrs. Gotbaum was dead before that first call.
Transcripts of Mr. Gotbaums three calls from New York, released on Thursday as part of a police report on Ms. Gotbaums death, provide a chilling account of a husbands efforts to reach his wife. He had last heard from her hours earlier, and she was upset and angry about missing a connecting flight to Tucson, the transcripts indicate.
They show that Mr. Gotbaum grew frustrated because airport operators were unable to give him information about his wifes status.
During his final conversation with an airport operator, Mr. Gotbaum said: I have no idea where she is. I havent talked to her. All I know is what youve told me and what I imagine has happened.
What Mr. Gotbaum did not know was that his wife was dead...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Gotbaum’s post-hoc CYA PR is going to make him look worse than if he’d just kept quiet and consoled his poor kids.
So some person who is an emotional train-wreck and whacked out on something should not be retrained when going postal? Please!
[However many issues she had, the cops are way too quick to handcuff people.]
On scene witnesses verified she was yelling, screaming, hitting and scratching officers and making every attempt to break loose. She also yelled she was ‘not a terrorist’. I have not heard she had been accused so. Have you?
And they were “too quick”? They should have tazed her, bro. Maybe she would be alive now.
I haven’t seen her tox reports in the paper (I no longer subscribe to the Republick).
She certainly should not have been left alone. In retrospect her behavior should have elicited a medical response as well as a law enforcement response. People just don’t behave that way for no reason and she should have been held for psychiatric evaluation, but that’s hindsight.
Perhaps her loving hubby, knowing of her alcohol and drug problems should have accompanied her?
ah...interestingly enough, a voice of reason...well stated...that pretty much puts this saga of “great expectations” from folks who just don’t have the facts...
{I have no complaint about anything they did from what Ive read, except for leaving her alone with just enough chain to hang herself.]
I don’t believe she was chained. She was handcuffed from behind with plastic “slip wraps”. This as a common, approved and safe method for most jurisdictions. Very few are able to manoeuver around to bring the tie around the neck and cause choking. I know I can’t.
I believe the courts have ruled surveillance to be a violation of privacy rights. May be wrong but I think that's the case.
In my county we monitor all the holding cells, but the cameras are aimed so you can’t see the commodes or anyone sitting on them. We stopped a suicide (just in time) owing to those cameras.
I quite agree with you that her family, starting with her husband, should have know it was not advisable for her to travel alone. On the other hand, sometimes people who are just a little crazy under very specific circumstances encounter something that pushes them over the edge.
It will be interesting to see the toxicology report.
It was my understanding that she was cuffed behind and a chain went from her cuffs to an eye-bolt on a wall or somewhere.
Whatever works! And if they had done just as you said, she'd be in rehab and we'd be on the McKinney thread. :-)
“I dont believe she was chained.”
The story keeps changing. Last thing I heard was that she was cuffed and the cuffs were secured to the wall with 2 feet of chain. Somehow or another she ended up dead.
My only disagreement is that she was left unobserved.
“Relax, take a deep breath......and your Valium ;-). But by shooting it all out so excitedly like that, it makes people want to write you off as a loonie.”
Then everybody should be so “loonie”! throw the bloody valium out of the window...and get angry, get passion, get the blood up and then make things happen where it counts! (which isn’t here)
Come on grey scream out like a loonie! make people think you are going to go storming out of your living room and kick some ass at the mayors office, at a party fundraiser, at your congressmans office, at your pta, at your church, at your friends house organizing a schoolboard run, etc etc...
People who have power did not get it by taking valiums and spending hours posting to internet forums.
This forum is good for making friends, screaming like loonies, and venting steam.
but lets not confuse venting steam with making change in real life. real life is much much more fun,
lol, valium indeed. (quaaludes are way better anyway. so i’m told.)
“What would you have done? Let her run amuck in the airport until someone was SERIOUSLY hurt?”
I can’t know, because I wasn’t there. However, there are a number of things I would probably have tried first.
“Id handcuff her too, and Im not the cops.”
Yeah, but you’re a woman.
What you suggest is little more than a very expensive baby sitter service for the detained. An arrestee is not watched 24-7. The family knew the deceased was ill yet even they assumed she could travel. She seems to have strangled herself which is not related to "care" for oneself and is not remotely related to Undocumented Immigrants. It is human nature to blame someone. If the coroner determines the death a suicide accept the tragic fact. The police are simply not at fault.
What you suggest is little more than a very expensive baby sitter service for the detained. An arrestee is not watched 24-7. The family knew the deceased was ill yet even they assumed she could travel. She seems to have strangled herself which is not related to "care" for oneself and is not remotely related to Undocumented Immigrants. It is human nature to blame someone. If the coroner determines the death a suicide accept the tragic fact. The police are simply not at fault.
A few hours too late....
she should have never traveled alone given her KNOWN history. His effort should have been before he put her on that first plane.
From my post #17:
“if he was going to pay $42,000/mo. for her to be in a specific re-hab - why didnt he spend a couple grand extra to fly her there in a private plane?”
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