DRANT #261: CAROL GOTBAUM: LYNCHED IN PHOENIX ARIZONA'S SKY HARBOR AIRPORT

Carol Gotbaum: LYNCHED in Phoenix Arizona's Sky Harbor Airport September 28, 2007

I want you to watch this video. This could be YOU. This WILL be YOU.
It shows unedited live footage of the public lynching of Carol Gotbaum in Phoenix Arizona.
It's narrated by the cops, and you know how truthful their description of the events will be -
but there is no sound on the actual tape, so to judge for yourself, just mute the sound, and watch.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/10/04/airport.death/index.html
The Police say that Carol Gotbaum died by strangling herself (!) while trying to get out of her handcuffs and chains. At least they haven't yet claimed that she was attacked by 19 Islamic Fanatics.
Eyewitnesses say that she was the victim of callous treatment by the TSA, and brutally excessive force by the Police.
As reported by the NY Times, Ms. Gotbaum was "behaving erratically," was possibly inebriated, and she is reported to have been on her way to a rehab center in Tucson.
(Please access here or read the complete NYTimes report below.)
Watch the video- and decide for yourself if Carol Gotbaum deserved to be thrown to the ground, handcuffed, and dragged off to her death.
Is being a pain in the ass a capital crime ? Its as much of one as being a Brazilian in London, if you recall.
According to eyewitness Mel Pittel, she was brutalized.
According to eyewitness Paige Harmon, there was no doubt that the Police used excessive force.
According to our very own eyes, we see the cops grab her, throw her down, and forcibly hand cuff her behind her back. She is then dragged across the airport, and we lose sight of her.
Witnesses say she was unconscious when she was incarcerated in a "holding cell" where she died.

Carol Gotbaum flew to Phoenix to change planes for Tucson, trying to save her marriage, her family and her very life. But first she had to go through SECURITY.
Carol Gotbaum weighed 105 pounds. She is seen dragging her luggage along the floor, shoeless, distraught, terror-stricken, extremely upset, some of her clothes unbuttoned. How do you think Carol lost her shoes ?
Have you been through an airport "security" check lately ?
Have you been late for a plane, and desperate, stuffing your 3 oz of deodorant and toothpaste into little plastic baggies, throwing out the last of your diet sprite, trying to get your shoes and belt off, still making sure they don't grab your cell phone or your wallet, and foraging for your boarding pass and official government picture ID ? You go through the metal detector, and it goes Bleleeeeleeeep.
Whatthe f ?
Your keys, you have your keys in your pocket.
Go through again.
Bleleeeeleeeep.
Oh shit, its the change you just got for the sandwiches.
One more time....
Finally.
And you run to the gate, 11 minutes BEFORE the plane is scheduled to go, and they tell you you can't get on.
Have you ever EVER wanted to scream "I AM NOT A GODDAM TERRORIST !" Let me go. Let me on the plane !!!"
Have you ever come Thiiissssssssssss close to losing it ?
Well, Carol Gotbaum lost it. This is what she screamed: "I AM NOT A TERRORIST ! I AM A MOTHER !"
And for that, she was lynched.
Her murder - like so much of the public violence perpetrated by the Oppressor's Police, was designed just like any other lynching--
To scare the REST of us into shutting up, if we know whass good fer us.
You act UP, nigger, and THIS is what you get.
Carol Gotbaum acted up, and the cops made a show of what happens to troublemakers, and lynched her.
They dragged her, 105 pounds, handcuffed, barefoot, hysterical, all across the airport.
They was telling us other niggers- You act up, boy, you get THIS.
And ya know what- we all shut up.
Watch the video-
Hundreds of people.
Hundreds of good ole American people-
did NOTHING.
No one came to her aid, no one tried to stop the police, no one tried to get her any medical attention, no one did one goddam thing.
Three fat Phoenix Thugs wearing Police uniforms brutalized her in plain ostentatious sight, and nobody did notheeeeeng.
The witnesses (above) were horrified, but they did -- nothing.
Excessive force has become such a common occurrence, that nobody even feels anything any more.
They've got us so we meekly walk through the security points, taking off shoes and shirts and socks and belts, turning our laptops on and off, submitting to pitty pats all over our bodies, stopped from being able to carry a bottle of water, a peanut butter sandwich, vitamin pills, skin lotion, lip gloss, hemorrhoid cream, anything that could obviously be a BOMB.
They've got us so we just follow orders, and now we have accepted them; our real new world orders.
We've gotten USED TO IT.
We don't even really notice any more.
And, we've shut up.
The lynchings have worked.
The murder of Carol Gotbaum was egregious, but the massive indifference is far more frightening.
The people who did nothing are doing nothing every day.
They see millions being murdered, people poisoned, children brutalized, babies burned, whole towns and villages reduced to piles of jagged rocks and weirdly twisted wire and metal shards, and THEY DO NOTHING.
They see 2,000,000 MILLION of their fellow citizens in prison, thousands of victims tortured and brutalized in Abu Ghraibs and Guantanamos, and hundreds of thousands of Immigrants, many US Citizens, jailed by the I.C.E. without charges or trials, They see tens of millions of their fellow citizens sick without treatment, hungry without food, homeless, or addicted, losing their homes to the banks, their sons and daughters to the wars, their schools and libraries bankrupted, and the air that their children and grandchildren breathe, the water they drink, the food they eat- all poisoned. And they do NOTHING.
They stand and watch as their pensions and wages get stolen while the upper upper grabs everything for themselves, and they smell the stench of the coal dust, the carbon monoxide, the filthy waste of Industry, and they do nothing.
They watch all this, and just as they watched Carol Gotbaum get lynched, they do nothing.
Look around you.
Sooner or later, we are all going to be Carol Gotbaum.
We will lose it- at a stoplight or a security checkpoint, or a line at the supermarket. Or because we can't get our desperately sick baby any medical care at the hospital.
Or- we will be peacefully quietly exercising our constitutional right to assemble, or to voice our opinion, or ask a question of a Senator--
Like Rev. Lennox Yearwood, or
Andrew Mayer
or like Archie R. Poole, who DIED in the custody of the PHOENIX POLICE YESTERDAY -
Sooner or later, its gonna be you, and its gonna be me.
We are all Carol Gotbaum, and we will all, sooner or later, face The Police in one guise, one form, or another.
And this is for absolute sure, unless we do something, every time, every single time we see a Carol Gotbaum or Rev Yearwood or Andrew Mayer --
unless we intercede, stand up, raise our voices, prevent, help, refuse to allow, we are lost.
Every time we walk by, avert our eyes, look the other way, pretend we didn't see-
we insure that our time WILL COME, and that when our time comes we will be alone.

The LEAST you can do is be a witness.
THEY are watching us everywhere.
THEY have cameras everywhere.
THEYy are recording us everywhere.
What we need to do, is watch and record THEM everywhere.
We all need to carry a video camera, or a phone that takes video, with us everywhere we go.
There are terrific mini video cameras available for UNDER $100 !
I know, I have one.
I brought it to DC on Sept 15, and it was incredible.
Rev Lennox Yearwood was attacked by the DC Capitol Police when he was on line to witness the Petraeus charade.
The cops jumped him, smashed his leg, and roughed him up- and of course they charged him with assaulting a police officer.
One beeeeg problem- WITNESSES had video cameras, and they recorded it all.
The cops took a look at the video evidence, and a few days ago- they dropped all the charges.
Yearwood is gonna sue their asses off.
In NY in 2004, the NY cops treated us brutally, and they and their agents provocateurs created violence, and fabricated evidence. They almost got away with it, but---
Our Side had VIDEO, and not only did the cops lose all of their cases, they have lost suits for damages, in the millions.
Your turn is going to come.
My turn is going to come.
We cannot stand by and do nothing.
Get Up Stand Up, as de Mon say-
or at least- buy a CAMERA.
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The New York Times

October 5, 2007
Phoenix Police Release Tapes of Gotbaum
By JOHN ELIGON

PHOENIX, Oct. 4 — The police here released three recordings from security cameras Thursday that showed Carol A. Gotbaum behaving erratically in an airport terminal, being arrested by three police officers after falling to the ground, and then stiffening her legs to make it hard for the police to move her in the moments before she died last Friday.

Ms. Gotbaum, 45, a mother of three and the stepdaughter-in-law of New York City’s public advocate, Betsy Gotbaum, was on her way to a connecting flight for Tucson, where she was to enter an alcohol rehabilitation center. She was denied access to the plane because boarding had been completed and the plane was about to take off.

In the parts of the recordings shown and narrated by the police, which last roughly five minutes, Ms. Gotbaum can first be seen hurrying toward a security area. Ms. Gotbaum, who according to the police appeared to be under the influence of alcohol at the time of her arrest, is too far from the camera for facial details to be seen.

Witnesses have said Ms. Gotbaum became irate when she was barred from the flight, hurling a small electronic device at another passenger and screaming, “I’m not a terrorist.” She was later found dead, cuffed and shackled in a holding cell.

The Phoenix police also released its official report on Thursday about the encounter. It included a transcript of telephone calls Ms. Gotbaum’s husband, Noah, made to the airport emergency service trying to warn them of his wife’s fragile state. During the first call, made around the time that Ms. Gotbaum was taken into custody, Mr. Gotbaum told an operator, “She is suicidal.” The operator was not able to connect Mr. Gotbaum to the police at that time, but took his number and said he would be called back.

In a previous statement the police said they had no knowledge of Ms. Gotbaum’s personal problems.

The recordings and the report were released the same day that Noah Gotbaum arrived.

The family’s lawyer, Michael C. Manning, reiterated his claim on Thursday that a witness had described Ms. Gotbaum as being unconscious before she was taken to the police holding area.

On the first recording, after she is seen running, Ms. Gotbaum stops and flails her arms; she appears to be screaming and repeatedly bends over in a bowing motion as passers-by turn and stare. At this point, a security agent approaches and speaks to her, trying to calm her down, and is shortly joined by two others.

Within seconds, three police officers approach Ms. Gotbaum, who backs away as they surround her, and then collapses forward to the ground. The officers go down to the ground with her, and there is a struggle to get her arm out from beneath her torso to cuff her behind her back.

They then lift her and start walking her toward the camera. Her back is arched and she appears disheveled.

In the second snippet, from another camera, Ms. Gotbaum is seen from behind walking with her legs very stiff, forcing the officers to pull her along.

In the final excerpt, from another camera in the terminal, she is leaning back with her legs seemingly locked. Her shoeless feet slide easily along the ground as the police move her.

Sgt. Mike Polombo narrated the video. Responding to a question about whether pressure was applied to Ms. Gotbaum’s back while she was on the ground, he said there was “no reason to believe anybody put any pressure on her.”

The video does not show Ms. Gotbaum being taken to the detention area, which was on a different level, moments later. She was clearly conscious when last glimpsed on the recording.

Mr. Manning has said she was “listless, unconscious to nearly unconscious” just before reaching the holding area. He said that his witness was an airline employee whose name he was withholding but planned to eventually release to the police. Once the employee is ready to be identified, Mr. Manning said, “I want Phoenix police to interview this witness. This is important.”

The police report maintained the department’s original account, which said that Ms. Gotbaum struggled with officers all the way to the detention facility, and during a search when she got there. She was later found dead in the holding room with the shackle across her neck.

But the police also gave details of a harrowing attempt by a police officer to resuscitate Ms. Gotbaum, saying that she vomited into the mouth of the officer as he gave her mouth-to-mouth, and that the officer then spit, but continued trying to save her.

Mr. Manning said: “We certainly want to see the evidence behind those statements. The version does differ in some important respects from what independent witnesses have told us.”

Noah Gotbaum is the son of Victor Gotbaum, who was executive director of District Council 37 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the city’s largest alliance of public employee unions, and his former wife, Dr. Sarah C. Gotbaum. Betsy Gotbaum is Victor Gotbaum’s current wife.

The Gotbaums have hired Dr. Cyril H. Wecht, a forensic pathologist from Pittsburgh, who performed an autopsy on Tuesday that was independent of the one performed by the Maricopa County medical examiner.

In the continuing disparity between the Gotbaum family’s version of events and that of the Phoenix authorities, Mr. Manning expressed disappointment on Thursday that the medical examiner’s office had withheld Ms. Gotbaum’s brain, throat and heart from Dr. Wecht.

Noah Gotbaum, flanked by a lawyer and family friends, whisked past members of the media on Thursday and went into the mortuary where his wife’s body had been taken. Mr. Gotbaum curled his lips and fought back tears as he entered the building.

Mr. Gotbaum and his entourage left a short time later without comment. He was on his way back to New York for Sunday’s memorial service for his wife.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
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HUFFINGTON POST
Allison Fine
Is Post-9/11 U.S. Becoming a Military State?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/allison-fine/is-post911-us-becomin_b_66813.html
Posted October 2, 2007 | 01:58 PM (EST)


The death of Carol Anne Gotbaum in the custody of the Phoenix Police Department last Friday afternoon is a shocking, unbelievable and a sad personal story. But, this tragic event is also a lesson in the inappropriate militarization of civilian police departments since 9/11. The fundamental question is this: Why was Carol Anne treated more like a prisoner at Abu Ghraib than a woman in distress who needed medical help?
Prior to 9/11 it would have been inconceivable that the National Guard, in full regalia and armed, would patrol public spaces like Grand Central Terminal. This greater military presence makes major American cities look more like third world countries with soldiers aiming their M-16s squarely at US citizens. Is it really that big of a deal, isn't it keeping us safer, some might ask? Well, yes it is a big deal, and no it isn't keeping us safer because the rules for safekeeping by civilian police are decidedly different from military protocol. The mission of the police is to support and safeguard the citizenry, the military is charged with securing and defending a space, a land, a country - and to do that you have to subdue the enemy - even if that enemy is sometimes us.

So, here's what we know so far about what happened to Carol Anne Gotbaum last Friday. Gotbaum became very upset and agitated when she was not allowed to board her flight late. She began to yell and threaten airline personnel. Two Phoenix police officers arrived at the concourse, had trouble subduing her, and ended up handcuffing and arresting her for disorderly conduct. According to a police spokesperson, they didn't have to "pepper spray or Tase her or anything else." I guess she was lucky that no presidential also-ran was around or else the Taser gun would surely have been used to protect such an important person from disorderly conduct.

According to one news account, Gotbaum yelled, "I'm not a terrorist! I'm a sick mom! I need help!" But there is no indication yet that the police ever contacted a doctor on her behalf. The assumption was that this was a security problem not a medical or personal one. She was left handcuffed and shackled to a table in a locked room for what the police say was 10-15 minutes, we may never know exactly how long, until they found her dead. The police department's initial comments that she appeared to strangle herself with the handcuffs that were behind her back are laughable -- if they weren't so sad and heartbreaking, particularly for the three children under 11 years old who are now motherless.

The difference between a military and civilian response is so stark in this sad story. A woman loses it in an airport terminal (and honestly who among us hasn't wanted to, especially in the last several years?) and she is treated like an enemy combatant rather than a woman in need of help. Why did the police feel it was necessary to physically subdue and shackle her and lock her in a room handcuffed and chained to a table? Because that is the appropriate military response to a security threat.

Police departments, encouraged by elected officials like Rudy G. who value order over personal freedoms, have come to view almost any public disturbance as a terror threat. Better to be safe than sorry in their minds. You lock up problems and throw away the key, as the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay are left to rot away, so was Carol Anne left to harm herself, or die of some ailment that the police seemed uninterested in treating. But, is it really better to be safe than sorry? Our slide into a military state is eroding our fundamental rights - slowly, inexorably, perhaps even permanently.

When, where, how does it stop? Well, we clearly can't count on our representatives, especially the lily livered reps in Congress who gave the feds more freedom to detain and interrogate people just this past August, to have the courage to change the public debate. It has to come from us, from individuals and citizens who know that this is not the way the United States of America should work. It's time to say enough is enough, we want the exit door out of the military-industrial complex before we all get shackled and left to die in locked rooms.
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Quote of the day:
"Under the influence of politicians, masses of people tend to ascribe the responsibility for wars to those who wield power at any given time. In World War I it was the munitions industrialists; in World War II it was the psychopathic generals who were said to be guilty. This is passing the buck.
The responsibility for wars falls solely upon the shoulders of these same masses of people, for they have all the necessary means to avert war in their own hands. In part by their apathy, in part by their passivity, and in part actively, these same masses of people make possible the catastrophes under which they themselves suffer more than anyone else. To stress this guilt on the part of the masses of people, to hold them solely responsible, means to take them seriously. On the other hand, to commiserate masses of people as victims, means to treat them as small, helpless children. The former is the attitude held by genuine freedom fighters; the latter that attitude held by power-thirsty politicians."
Wilhelm Reich, The Mass Psychology of Fascism