The Senseless Murder of Carol Gotbaum

"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.

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." Carol Anne Gotbaum was handcuffed and left in an airport holding cell. Police say they checked on her every 15 minutes; she had been screaming the entire time, but at one point, police realized she was quiet and found that she was not breathing. She had been handcuffed behind her back but when Gotbaum was found, her hands were front of her and the handcuffs were up by her neck, leading police to believe she was trying to get out of the handcuffs.It took over two hours for the Phoenix airport authorities to notify Noah Gotbaum that his wife had died in police custody at Phoenix airport. He called the airport's communications centre on Sept. 28 at 4:39 p.m., 5:27 p.m. and 6:01 p.m.

Carol Gotbaum was obviously destressed and even verbalized that, "I sick." Why wasn't she immediately assessed by some kind of medical control; ie airport EMS.
Anyone who has worked security for any kind of time knows that you NEVER leave a hysterical person in ANY form of physical or chemical restraint unattended.(Constant visual observation is most often required.) What if this woman had a seizure or a heart attack? The fact that the prelimary assessment is that she suffocated/strangled herself on the metal handcuffs tells me that she should have NEVER be left alone in that holding cell. Hope the City of Tucson has a good legal team because this has MAJOR liability written all over it!

Gotbaum, 45, broke down several times on her flight from New York and confided to a passenger sitting next to her that she was going to rehab.

"Ms. Gotbaum would break into tears during the flight and while they were speaking with each other," according to a police statement describing an account by the passenger, Jodi Hall.
According to the account from Hall, "Ms. Gotbaum said that someone would have come with her, but it was her decision to do it on her own."

The homicide unit has wrapped up its probe of the death, and Sgt. Andy Hill says it appears that the police acted appropriately. "If your blood alcohol is three times the legal limit for driving, if they have prescription drugs that are part of their system, that's going to cause problems," said Phoenix police spokesman Sgt. Andy Hill, referring to the autopsy report.

Meanwhile, a Gotbaum family attorney said the findings increase the likelihood that he'll file a claim - the first step toward a lawsuit - against the city. "She died as a result of being put in that room with that chain, alone and unobserved," said Phoenix attorney Michael Manning, adding that the family has not made a final decision about legal action. "She didn't die because she was drinking. She died because she was asphyxiated."