Not A Terrorist, Just Emotional. Drunk. And Self-Strangled.

Thank gosh for private investigators. The death of Carol Gotbaum, a 45-year-old Manhattan woman related to some New York politicians, was figured out, thanks to them. Part of my mind has been waiting with baited breath since I heard of the death, simply because of how hard it was for a layman to guess what killed her.

No bullets. No obvious physical acts in the video that should have lead to death. No medical conditions mentioned, or tasers, or jumps out of windows. But a death? How?

After making an overly-emotional scene after missing a flight in a Phoenix airport, police arrested her, cuffed her and took her into custody. (One thing that sticks out , though, is that they didn't try to talk her down, just calm her first, before arresting her. Just went in and forced her to the ground in a matter of seconds. Add this to the "police are too impatient" file.)

She was left in a waiting room in the security section of the airport for a matter of minutes by herself. In that span of time she died. She was found with her handcuffs in an odd position around her body.

Was it police brutality, I wondered?

The coroner now says that it was strangulation, that was probably only possible because of how drunk she was. Apparently drunkenness, prescription drug abuse, handcuffs, and odd positions don't mix.

The odd thing is: she was on her way to rehab when this whole thing happened.

It's a real tragedy. But it reminds me of a very important fact that has been drilled into me these past 6 years: AIRPORTS are a FREEDOM-FREE ZONE. Don't to anything suspicious. Anything. Weird, emotional, creative, intellectual and, oh yeah, Middle-Eastern people, try as hard as possible to look as normal, whitebread, calm and average as you can.

Do it wrong and you might get unlucky. You might get arrested. And, well, if you are really really unlucky and also drunk, you might just die.


Emotional bit: knowing that she was screaming "I'm not a terrorist" as she was arrested and accidentally taken to her death just hits my tragic core. Ow.