Woman Dies in Airport Police Custody
October 1st, 2007Via: NY Daily News:
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.
Jesus Christ.
I’ll never forget the first time I went through the new improved security lines at the Tampa, Fl airport.
A very long line had formed; doors were opened; and we were herded like cattle into a room with VERY LONG security lines.
There were many elderly people. One of which, when confronted with a scenario that reeked of something eerily similar to an Aushwitz venue (even though I have only read about the ovens and other assorted treats awaiting those unawares was thinking on this aspect of the whole thing), freaked out, and started vocalizing his discontent.
He didn’t understand what was going on. I didn’t either but I was able to suppress my fear like the rest of us few hundred or other sheep in the lines.
This elderly gent, I would guess in his late 80’s- yelling about his distress about possibly missing his flight because of this security nonsense – was hauled off to somewhere deep into the bowels of the building by huge strong armed thugs wearing TSA uniforms, supposedly protecting the rest of us patient sheep from the terrorist act this old gent would perform.
I still regret and am embarassed and ashamed of myself to this day that I did not Cry Out in Defense of this elderly gent. It’s pitiful.
Where do decide whether you want to fly home, or stand down these thugs?
People can’t MAKE UP the STRESS of going through airport security. It is a situation forced upon them from the GUARDS who don’t, from what I’ve seen, have a freaking clue as to the duress they are imposing on traveler’s. Getting old people out of their wheelchair’s; making people who have protheses take their artificial legs off and putting them through the scanner ( I know a coworker who has to do that).
I can’t believe, yet can believe that this woman was placed in such an untenable situation that she died.
My Gawd. What did she have in her carry on bag? Some homemade brownies desparately needed by loved ones to restore them to health? That the TSA screener had a craving for?
This case is an ambulance chaser’s dream.
Wrongful DEATH.
Won’t restore life to this woman, but might start to inflict some pain on the TSA – an agent provacateur of the US Govment that’s gone wild and is out of control with their picayune bullshit.
Taking people’s food and water at security screening is not due to a terrorist threat. One screener told my family member that he was forced to take water from passenger’s because the airport concessionaire’s were complaining that they were losing money on sales.
And if you think I’m crazy, right about the time Coca Cola was being boycotted in India, well you know, once upon a time there were these terrorists. Although these persons did not have tickets to fly anywhere but in their dreams, the world’s spy agencies have informed us that they had devised a way to build bombs that would only explode on airplanes. These frightful bombs could be composed of liquids of any kind including, but not limited to contact lense solution, shampoo, lotion, toothpaste, FOOD, JUICE, WATER. These rocket scientists had devised an alchemy in the elements that could blow us up with a magic never heard of before.
And we just say OH FUCKING ‘KAY despite the fact that all of the UK “terrorists” re the liquid bombs were released but one.
Yet another victim of the BushReich. Wonder if they tattooed a number on her left inner arm so the ReichsCoroner could identify her?