Oct 5, 2007 11:45 am US/Eastern
Surveillance Video: Gotbaum's Last Moments At Phoenix Airport
Attorney: Police Actions May Have Killed 45-Year-Old
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
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Surveillance video at Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix shows the last few minutes of Carol Anne Gotbaum's life. She was arrested and dragged away by several officers and later died mysteriously in a holding cell.
CBS
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Carol Anne Gotbaum is the daughter-in-law of NYC Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum.
CBS
CBS 2 HD has obtained surveillance video showing three different angles of last week's arrest of Carol Anne Gotbaum at Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix.
The video shows the daughter-in-law of New York City Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum reacting after learning she had missed her flight. It also shows Phoenix police officers move in on her, take her to the ground and arrest her.
Different angles show officers taking Gotbaum to a holding cell, where she later died mysteriously.
On the morning of Sept. 29, Gotbaum left her Upper West Side home, brought her children to school and flew off to Arizona. Plagued by a history of drinking and depression, she headed for an alcohol rehabilitation program in Tucson.
She landed in Phoenix at approximately 1:15 p.m. Arizona time.
"I know when she landed in Phoenix, she was stone-cold sober," said Gotbaum family attorney Michael Manning. "She got off the plane, called her husband, confident, committed, excited."
With 90 minutes to go for her connecting flight, Gotbaum went to eat lunch at the airport.
"We don't know whether she was drinking at lunch. We're going to find that out," said Manning.
Then she arrived for her connecting flight to Tucson. But she was too late. According to one witness who preferred to be unnamed, she became hysterical.
"She got her cell phone, broke it on a couple of customers, hit hem, threw it on her," said the witness.
At 2:49 pm, Phoenix Police received got a radio call about a woman who was "loud and disturbing." Within minutes, officers were struggling to subdue her.
She was arrested at 2:53 p.m. One officer used a knee to her back.
"She was screaming 'You're hurting me!'" recalled another witness. "The handcuffs are too tight on me!'"
Some speculate that could have been Gotbaum's fatal moment.
"When a person is lying prone and someone is lying on the back of the person, the person can't breathe," said former NYPD Captain Edward Mamet.
That's known as compressional asphyxia. Her attorney says the police could have killed Gotbaum right then and there.
"The witnesses that saw her just before she went into the holding tank say she was completely listless and unconscious," said Manning.
But according to police: "No one got hurt. The officers picked Ms. Gotbaum up on her feet and two officers then began to escort her to a holding area."
Police say Gotbaum then refused to allow them to search her. They chained her, handcuffed, to a bench. And then they left her alone.
According to police: "Officers felt due to their experience and the actions that had taken place Ms. Gotbaum was not a threat to others or to herself."
But they were wrong. At 3:29 p.m., Gotbaum was discovered dead. Police say she strangled herself with her chain. Her lawyer isn't so sure.
"It's pretty clear that somehow, some way, somebody used that chain around her neck," said Manning.
Police say they didn't know anything about her history of drinking or mental illness, and that they handled the case by the book.
(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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