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September 30, 2007

Your dignity or your life

Is it just me or is it highly ironic that this op-ed by Ilana Mercer was published just hours before a woman died in custody at the Phoenix airport after being detained for screaming when she was not allowed on a flight.

From CNN:


Phoenix police were investigating Sunday how a 45-year-old woman died over the weekend while in police custody at Phoenix's Sky Harbor International Airport.

Carol Ann Gotbaum, in an undated family photo, may have accidentally strangled herself while in custody.

Carol Ann Gotbaum may have accidentally strangled herself while trying to get out of her handcuffs, Phoenix Police Department spokesman Sgt. Andy Hill said Saturday.

"According to investigators, it appeared as though Ms. Gotbaum had possibly tried to manipulate the handcuffs from behind her to the front, got tangled up in the process, and they ended up around her neck area," he said.

Witnesses told police that Gotbaum was "yelling and screaming" and running through the terminal Friday. She was arrested for disorderly conduct.

While handcuffed, the New Yorker became "disruptive" and she was taken to a holding room, where she was left alone, Hill told CNN affiliate KTVK.

Investigators said officers went to check on her five to 10 minutes later. Police policy requires that be done every 15 minutes.

Finding Gotbaum "unconscious and not breathing," Hill said, officers performed CPR.

"Sometime during the time she went into custody, she went into medical distress," he said.

Gotbaum was the mother of three young children and the daughter-in-law of longtime New York City Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum.

A spokeswoman for the Maricopa County medical examiner said an autopsy would be conducted Monday morning.

From IlanaMercer.com:


Liberty is a simple thing. It's the unassailable right to shout, flail your arms, even verbally provoke a politician, unmolested. Tyranny is when those small things can get you assaulted, incarcerated, injured and even killed.

Evidence of tyranny in America is mounting. For the "offense" of questioning John Kerry persistently and vociferously, Andrew Meyer, a journalism student, was pounced upon, tasered, detained overnight, and charged with violently resisting arrest (a felony) and disturbing the peace (a misdemeanor)....

Freedoms, you say, are secure so long as citizens can check police excesses by recording, photographing or videotaping these public servants performing their duties. Not so. The police can video us without our consent, but we film them at the risk of a felony prosecution.

"There's been a rash of arrests of late for videotaping police," writes Radley Balko, a civil liberties specialist. Balko has catalogued countless cases where individuals who've filmed police excesses have been arrested on felony wiretapping charges and threatened with lengthy jail sentences. Balko has called for a repeal of laws "explicitly forbidding the recording, photographing or videotaping of police officers. [W]hile they're on duty, they serve the public. And the public, their employer, should have every right to keep them accountable."

As Thomas Jefferson said, "When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty."

Posted by Mike at September 30, 2007 08:16 PM

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Comments

Ms. Mercer should rename her artice “Irrationalities-R-Us”.

First off tasers are a wonderful thing… now police can subdue a suspect without causing more injury to the suspect or themselves.

Pepper spray was the old technology… until it was found unaffected on some people under the influence of certain drugs.

Taser’s allow police to subdue people with a chance of minimal harm… there is risk in everything. Even in taking a shower.

Also what Ms. Mercer is missing that most Police Departments require that the officers be tasered to carry one.

Tyranny? You give liberals a bad name!

Try living in communist Russia and speak up against a politician… how about meeting Sadaam on the street and yelling at him on what he did to the Kurds.

Think about the big picture… I have watched both videos. The Kerry video is interesting because the “man” is yelling and resisting arrest. The officers are surrounded by 100 other students and have to control the situation. Again I have never disobeyed the lawful order of a Police Officer so I can’t comment on why he did.

The woman tasered in front of the bar was told numerous times to get down on her stomach. Lets not forget the police were summoned by the bar management. Have you ever seen a Bar kick out someone? Yes they have to be acting pretty irrationally. She didn’t. Then she found it necessary to kick the back door of the Police car that the citizens of the city paid for. A few days later she made the talk show round with her attorney.

In this instance I feel sorry for the lady and the family. She was obviously mentally off.

If we should be focusing on anything it should be why she snapped. You can tell by the statements of her daughter that they knew she had mental issues. Why don’t we focus on other factors? Were her medications a little off? Who is to blame there?

Watch the video again and look at the reactions from grown men that were just passing by. They stepped away from the situation. People that act irrationally due irrational things. It is the job of the police to subdue the person potentially placing other citizens in harms way by her actions. Would you have handed a newborn baby to this woman? What if the woman would have grabbed a knife out of her pocket and stabbed someone? By her actions she lack of mental stability to she was unable to make sane decisions. Thus the police had to subdue her.

Again it is a shame she tried to escape her cuffs and became asphyxiated. I am sure every officer involved feels horrible about the situation.

However they did all they could with their policies and procedures and she still managed to act irrationally thus strangling herself in the process.

What ever happened to minding the police? Anyone want to comment on Lee Harveys face after his arrest… do we want to go back to those days?

Posted by: xmrocks [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 5, 2007 09:06 AM

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