Airport Victim's Family Wants Answers

(CBS/AP)  The woman who died in police custody after being detained at the Phoenix airport was looking for a place to heal. Now, her politically-connected family is looking for justice.

Carol Anne Gotbaum, 45, was a mother of three young children, and well-educated, with a masters degree received in South Africa, where she grew up, reports CBS News Early Show national correspondent Jeff Glor. She was on her way to an alcohol rehabilitation center in Tucson, Ariz., when officers arrested her for disorderly conduct. Police said she was late for a flight and became angry when a gate crew didn't let her on the plane. Witnesses told police she was yelling and running throughout the terminal.

As police moved in, airport workers reportedly heard Gotbaum yell, "I'm not a terrorist. I'm a sick mom. I need help."

Officers handcuffed her behind her back and took her to a holding room without a surveillance camera, where she kept screaming, authorities said.

After about five to 10 minutes, officers no longer could hear her voice and went to check. Gotbaum was found unconscious with her hands "pressed against her neck area," police spokesman Sgt. Andy Hill said.

Gotbaum "appears to have been manhandled by the Phoenix Police Department," said Betsy Gotbaum, the victim's stepmother-in-law and New York City's public advocate. "She cried out for help at the airport, but her pleas appear to have been met by mistreatment."

Attorney Michael Manning, who was hired by Gotbaum's family to monitor the police investigation, said it doesn't seem possible she could have killed herself.

"She was handcuffed behind her back and shackled to a table," he said. "It doesn't make sense that she could have physically managed to strangle herself."

"The autopsy is going to need to be done to confirm there was a compressive force to neck and that the cause of death is asphyxiation. It is also going to need to exclude that drugs or alcohol played a role or she had some unknown natural disease which played a role," forensic pathologist Daniel J. Spitz said on CBS News' The Early Show.

"If this is an asphyxiation, it's because of that other chain which was obviously long enough or could have been long enough to allow a compressive force to her neck," Spitz said.

Spitz is Chief Medical Examiner of Macomb and St. Clair Counties in Michigan, and is not connected with the Gotbaum case.

Manning plans to send a representative to watch the county medical examiner's autopsy of Gotbaum's body Tuesday. He'll conduct his own inquiry as to whether police followed proper procedure.

Manning, a high-profile lawyer who represented the government against failed savings and loan executive Charles Keating, has previously won settlements against Sheriff Joe Arpaio in wrongful-death lawsuits. He said the family hasn't decided whether it should file a lawsuit against Phoenix police.

"Under police procedure you don't treat an emotionally distraught person or even an intoxicated person by handcuffing and shackling them. You get them help," Manning told CBS News. "So we're disappointed that this happened to her. We want to find out why."

Phoenix Police Department Professional Standards Bureau also is conducting an investigation, a standard procedure following an in-custody death.

Police spokesman Sgt. Andy Hill said officers followed established policy while detaining Gotbaum. Police also said their procedures for arresting someone at the airport haven't changed since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

"Everything, so far that we know, is according to policy," Hill said.

"Carol was a wonderful, wonderful person. she was a wonderful mother. she was sweet and kind and loving," Betsy Gotbaum told reporters. She was just five foot seven and just 105 pounds, her stepmother-in-law said.

David Boyer, acting director of the Maricopa County Medical Examiner's Office, said he didn't have a problem if Gotbaum's family sends someone to the autopsy. Boyer said family members will occasionally ask to have someone present.

Boyer said the autopsy should be complete within a few weeks.

New York City's Public Advocate is an independently elected citywide official, next in line to the mayor, who handles public complaints about the city and its agencies.

Betsy Gotbaum, who may be a candidate for New York City mayor in 2009, earlier served as the city's commissioner of parks and recreation. Her husband Victor Gotbaum is a long-time municipal labor leader and a former member of the city Board of Education.

[Krazcarl]

xzavierbrown...What is your problem not all police are bad no one is impliying that I''m a 200 lb man and in no way fere a 100 lb. lady unless a weapon was present though there might be a black belt out there that could send me packing. This reaks of coverup I used to be a nurse and have known nurses I wouldn''t want to take care of my dog. Chaining an unruly woman ton a table is severe and they were going to teach her a lesson thought it was funny at best at worst they went in and tried to shut her up. She was horrified sure never been in that situation before and thought she could reason with the police she was wrong. I don''t condon her behavior but being a loudmouth at an airport should not be a death sentance. Covering for bad apples is not protecting them just makes you look bad.

[susanhelit]

Sorry andromeda - but man-handling implies they were treating her worse than was required. Those same witness accounts have her going nuts. Not some normal irate passenger who is suddenly tackled, but an out of control woman who required that minimal force to take her into custody.

[andomeda]

xzavierbrown:
Yes, I understand that. I was merely disabusing SusanHelit of her idea that the lawyer had absolutely no evidence or witness reports of man-handling of the woman in question.

[xzavierbrown]

Sorry, Susan, this is not true. Other newspaper articles have reported that she was "wrestled to the ground", that one policemen put his knee in her back while at least 2 other policemen grabbed at her flailing arms and legs, they then handcuffed her and then "dragged her away". Sounds like "man-handling" to me !! If you have only read one article about a story, you shouldn''''t jump to conclusions and attack people when you don''''t know the whole story.

Posted by andomeda at 08:55 PM : Oct 02, 2007
+ report abuse

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that is what happens when "please" do not work..when "pleading" does not work..and when a person is ''unruly'' in a civlian setting.

[xzavierbrown]

Posted by crzmeat at 09:37 PM : Oct 02, 2007
+ report abuse


Posted by tngreen at 09:17 PM : Oct 02, 2007
report abuse

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Imagine a police force that works like they way you want..

what you get is an out of control city. a city-full of dead police officers..

[Krazcarl]

TNGREEN..Thank-You for an enlightened post I was also a nurse {LPN} never found it cool to abuse someone cause I could guess that''s the difference you have a classy friend not all nurses are that way.

[tngreen]

I have a friend who is a nurse. She once assisted an attorney in a wrongful death case against a police department, in which an out-of-control mental patient was beaten to death by six police officers. After reviewing the autopsy report, she commented, "Over the years, I have been punched, scratched, bitten, and slapped by patients who were out of control--and I have never, EVER so much as hit a patient, much less beaten one to death. This level of force is not necessary to control someone, if you know what you are doing."

This woman was probably experiencing DTs and needed immediate medical help. Don''t they train these people?

[andomeda]

SusanHelit writes: "I love the lawyer - claims ''''manhandled'''' without a single thing to base it on - no claim someone saw it, no claim of a report - just says it, and figures that impression will go through the public, without a grain of truth attached..."

Sorry, Susan, this is not true. Other newspaper articles have reported that she was "wrestled to the ground", that one policemen put his knee in her back while at least 2 other policemen grabbed at her flailing arms and legs, they then handcuffed her and then "dragged her away". Sounds like "man-handling" to me !! If you have only read one article about a story, you shouldn''t jump to conclusions and attack people when you don''t know the whole story.

[Krazcarl]

eggy1620...Your a buthole and any individual who make a statement like that is next door to a child molester. If you thought you were funny you weren''t you one sick cookie the kind that hides in the shadows,

[toldyouso21]

"Police said she was late for a flight and became angry when a gate crew didn''t let her on the plane. Witnesses told police she was yelling and running throughout the terminal. "

Picture this: You are late for your flight and are running through the terminal and shouting to passerby to excuse you but you are about to miss your flight--imagine you are also shouting at the people in uniform to hold that flight. Now you get there and they are preparing to close the doors. You explain who you are and how you just arrived--you may be talking fast and a bit loud due to all the shouting and running you just did.They tell you , they bumped you, gave someone else your seat and now you have to wait. But you must catch that flight--maybe it was a court ordered rehab and if you aren''t there, you lose your place or get in trouble. You try talking , loudly complaining but still, the answer is no--you are desperate and won''t give up, then some police come and handcuff you dragging you away.....

this could be any of us who are late and type A or late and desperately want to catch our plane--the question is: What really happened in that holding room and why are there no surveillance cameras there? If the woman WAS a terrorist, she certainly was given free time to detonate herself.