A US Airways passenger who was late for her flight and denied boarding by the gate crew became agitated and caused enough of a stir that she was arrested, according to USAToday.
The woman was placed in handcuffs and taken to a holding cell where she was found dead sometime later. It’s suspected that she may have been trying to escape the handcuffs and accidentally choked herself to death, but the exact cause of death is unknown.
From USA Today:
Carol Ann Gotbaum, 45, of New York, was arrested Friday at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport after a conflict with gate crews who refused to allow her to board a plane, said Sgt. Andy Hill, a Phoenix police spokesman.
The airline said the plane was already preparing to depart. She was rebooked on the next flight, but “she became extremely irate, apparently running up and down the gate area,” US Airways spokesman Derek Hanna said Saturday.
Officers handcuffed her and took her to the holding room, where she kept screaming, authorities said. Hill said officers checked on her when she stopped screaming and found her unresponsive.
Hill said it appears Gotbaum may have tried to get out of her handcuffs, became tangled in the process and the cuffs ended up around her neck. A cause of death will be determined by the Maricopa County Medical Examiner.
Woman dies after airport arrest [USAToday]
(Photo:Roebot)
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@TehRev: Just remember this comment the next time your connecting flight is delayed and you’re trying to get home on the last flight of the day…
I speculated on my blog the other day that she had been murdered, and imagine my surprise when all my search engine terms for that day related to her ‘accident’ – and demonstrated that the public has its own doubts about the ‘accident’.
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From chaosmotor.com
@fejjnagaf: I am sure your “little brother” must have told you this but just in case :
You are full of yourself!
Yes you can prepare for every eventuality but there are paid employees whose PRIMARY JOB is to make sure that you don’t have to jump through hurdles to reach your destination. They are PAID to ensure that you have safe and smooth flight… the problems is that these assholes have become federal employees now and its much harder to fire them and they know it… also they have way more power than they deserve. If their (frequent) incompetence results in passengers getting upset then YES they are to be blamed…!
Greyhound it is!
@ChewySquirrel: Exactly. And yes, we are a pretty screwed up country that sues everybody.
@pshah:
My little brother did not tell me I was ‘full of myself’. He was able to drop the ego act and realize that I was right. There are always things we can do to prevent issues from interfering with success. I know because I’ve made the same mistakes he did. I was helping him. I’ll give you that if he was a stranger and I was opening my mouth about it, I’d be full of myself. But we were discussing some important things. My point was that he take a proactive approach to his education from now on instead of ‘letting things happen’. It’s how I went from flunking out to graduating on the deans list. I’m sorry you never learned that making excuses for your own failures only excuses your failures, and only then to yourself. Everyone else just thinks you failed.
I’m curious – who are the paid employees whose ‘primary job is to make sure you don’t have to jump through hurdles to reach your destination’ you are referring to?
I’m curious, because I don’t know to whom you are speaking of…
Are you saying security is supposed to?
Airline employees?
I guess if you want to be reactionary, it’s your perogative.
But the last time I checked, security is tasked with making flights safer.
And flight attendants are supposed to make the flight smoother and run well, but if the plane is on the tarmac ready to fly, then it sure isn’t a good idea for them to stop the flight, bring it back to the terminal and delay everyone elses flight so one late woman can board.
And flight attendants are employed by the airlines, not the federal government.
So you MUST be referring to the TSA, who are not involved in this matter. It was the local police department, who are also not federal employees.
She was arrested by phoenix police for disturbing the peace (disorderly conduct), not by TSA. She wasn’t a security threat as much as she was a public nusaince.
Read this:
[www.villagevoice.com]
“Phoenix Police Department spokesman Andy Hill told CNN:
We did receive a call that she was very loud – yelling and screaming, running around the concourse area. Two officers responded to that location. They contacted Ms. Gotbaum. They could not calm her down. There was probable cause to arrest her for disorderly conduct by disturbing the peace, which they did. It was very difficult for them to get her handcuffed, but they did not have to pepper-spray or Tase her or anything else.”
Settle down. Take a step back and try to find some objectivity, especially in light of the fact that you only have part of the story. And your facts wrong.
@LTS!:
bingo…
well put.
@fejjnagaf: “Take a step back and try to find some objectivity, especially in light of the fact that you only have part of the story. And your facts wrong.” This is Consumerist, remember?
If I am siting in the airport and some crazy ass woman is yelling and screaming (maybe even kicking and punching, maybe) I want her removed as well. You fly, you do it by there rules. And even if I was in a restaurant I would expect police to come and take her away. Too bad she died. But she led to her arrest. Do you really think that screaming that you missed your flight is going to change anything these days. If anything the chaos could cause a delay to others as well for security reasons.
The rest does sound sketchy so far but I will wait for more info. So far for part 1, she is in the wrong. I am still sorry she died.
Police Chief Clancy Wiggum “Bake ‘em away toys”.
@fejjnagaf:
“I’ll give you that if he was a stranger and I was opening my mouth about it, I’d be full of myself.”
Umm… you are discussing the story with strangers (readers) right now.
“There are always things we can do to prevent issues from… blah blah blah”
Have you every come across a matter that is out of your hands? If not than you must be super successful, master of all and completely ecstatic with all aspects of your life. No?? What are you waiting for… no excuses…. get what you want… do what you want… ’cause everything is upto YOU.
Ok… end rant… back to the topic at hand…
Point is that there are multiple factors to an outcome… and sides to a story…
Yes I was talking about TSA employees… no they weren’t involved?? You know that as a FACT?? How could you??
Yes there are employees whose job it is to make you travel smoother (airline employees, airport personnel, TSA employees, etc, etc)…. shocking I know… but passengers are the customers.
If you believe that you know all the “facts” just cause you read the filtered press and that it makes you some expert on this incident then suit yourself but no one with common sense buys that.
I think what’s missing from this story is an explanation about why
she “freaked out”. Perhaps it was due to a need of medical attention.
In some cases fevers or strokes can cause violent behavior. Did anyone
bother to check her out BEFORE they cuffed her and threw her in a cell?
@pshah:
Oh boy. You just can’t leave well enough alone, can you?
Yes. I was discussing it in this case with everyone. I was doing it to make my point.
Have I ever come across anything that was out of my hands? Of course. But in my experience, there are almost always things we can do to prevent those things from going the wrong way. In THIS case, she was late and it was preventable. 100%. If you honestly believe there was NOTHING she could have done to make her flight, you are as delusional as you are short sighted and quick to judge. Your ‘rant’ is asinine.
How do I know TSA wasn’t involed? That it is a fact? How could I? It’s called “reading” and it is a skill I learned as a youngster and then developed, and continue to do so, throughout my life. If you had bothered to read the link I provided, or even just the blurb I quoted from it, you’d see that TSA didn’t arrest anyone. Here, I’ll provide yet another link for you to not read that shows that it wasn’t TSA that made the arrest or detention.
[cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com]
Boom. Right there in black and white. Go read the article….
Of the people you listed who you claim to be tasked with making the flight smoother, only TSA are employed by the federal government. No where on their website could I find that listed as an objective. So that claim is also nonsense.
Here’s what the TSA is supposed to do:
“The Transportation Security Administration protects the Nation’s transportation systems to ensure freedom of movement for people and commerce.” But they weren’t involved, so it is a moot point. A hilarious logical error on your part, but moot.
“If you believe that you know all the “facts” just cause you read the filtered press and that it makes you some expert on this incident then suit yourself but no one with common sense buys that”
I guess you might be right! Better to guess at the facts, like you did, and make accusations and false assertions based on a post at the consumerist without reading any other fact based reporting on the matter.
My bad. I was using my brains and decided to do a google search for news stories, then made my determination based on facts. Sorry.
Face it Pshah, you are fighting with me over absolutely nada.
All I said was let’s see what else comes out. YOU jumped to conclusions, attacked me for stating that there are things within our control that we can do to avoid problems, and then called my reasoned and researched opinion devoid of common sense.
@OKH:
my bad.
@dantc: Something is definitekly fishy…her family lawyer claims she was also shackled to a tabletop.
I dont have time to write a long essay like you did but herez the bottom line… if everybody took the official statements and press report at face value then this article wouldn’t be on the website. Keep reading and believing what ever is fed to you… other people know better…
@jamar0303:
There is no indication from the information in this story (or in any other articles that I have seen about this incident) that USAirways had anything to do with this, other that (correctly) calling police when an a passenger was creating a disturbance.
If by using international airlines to fly domestically, you are saying that you would fly from, for example, New York to Washington by way of London, well that’s just stupid.
@pshah:
Fair enough.
I’ll say it again – based on the information I read all over the web and in every news site I visited, she was arrested by the police department.
Let’s reserve judgment until we hear more. It’s too bad you are too stubborn to even consider how ridiculous it is for you to say to me that I should be skeptical when you took this post and turned it into a tirade about the TSA and how they are now federal employees eager to abuse their power. Especially in light of the fact that TSA wasn’t involved.
It is also ironic that you are now saying there is more to the story after having implied on this thread that TSA acted abusively and with physical force based on zero information and dangerous assumption.
There IS more to this story. The shame of it all is how eager some consumerist readers are to come to conclusions that have nothing to do with what was reported based on their own negativity and imaginations. I’m glad you count yourself among those who ‘know better’. Me? I’m with the wait and see crowd. We’re the folks who aren’t ready to assume wrongdoing before that notion has even been reasonably introduced.
@TehRev: Have you ever been on a flight that has been delayed for some weird reason and spent the entire time worrying about missing your connecting flight?
If someone is just plain late, screw ‘em. But connecting flights are another story.
She may have been attempting something like this:
[www.youtube.com]
Turns out, she was on her way to retox according to the family attorney, and frankly that story seems fishy. Who goes to rehab by themselves? Why was she getting on a plane home to NY if she was GOING to rehab? OMGZ!! SMELLS LIKE A COVERUP TO ME!!11 Anyway, there’s your answer – she was most certainly the cause of her own demise.
@specialed5000: No, more like San Fransisco to Nashville by way of Toronto (or Mexico City, or some nearby place outside America). Not that stupid. (although I’d go New York-Tokyo-Los Angeles just to experience the sheer joy that is ANA flight service) Oh, and I’m sure that US Airways probably isn’t at fault… if I haven’t seen various gate agents here in China be able to talk down people from “screaming and kicking” to quietly sitting and waiting for the next flight (very common with people here; I should know, I’m like that too and have seen lots of others like that). It takes work, and if the gate agents can’t handle it, they should be trained to or put in another line of work.
UPDATE. [www.cnn.com]
Again, the story isn’t how she behaved.
The story is that she was left unattended, while highly agitated and restrained, leading to her death.
Restrained prisoners must be observed and attended-to for just this reason. Handcuffed people have a reduced ability to provide for their own safety.
Leaving her unattended for 15 minutes, while agitated and restrained, is not merely unforgivable, it is likely actionable.
Further update:
The Daily News [www.nydailynews.com] says that she may have been left alone and unobserved for 30 minutes.
Don’t you people have siblings? It’s the easiest thing in the world to curl up and step over your cuffs to move them in front of you. Which she apparently didn’t know how to do, if she managed to get “tangled”.
@OKH:
She DIED. Try to show a little class.