Like clockwork, when things go very wrong, the law enforcement crisis machinery goes into high gear to find some way to blame the victim.  And so, the Smearing of Carol Ann Gotbaum begins.  If done well, no one asks the right questions about what went wrong.

The 108 pages of details from the Phoenix Police Department are spread across the New York Times story.  Carol Ann’s husband, Noah, made phone calls to tell them that Carol Ann was in a “fragile state.”  His purpose was to ask that they be gentle with her, but the smear is that she was some sort of suicidal nutjob.  He mentioned once that she was “suicidal”, and that suddenly becomes prominent to suggest that killed herself. 

Naturally, alcoholism is prominently littered throughout.  Why?  Because this smears her by creating the image of a low-life, evil person.  While we often speak of alcoholism as a disease, we still see addiction as a character flaw and sign of human worthlessness. 

Then, they promote the extraordinary efforts to save Carol Ann’s life.  After they found her dead.  The image of the brave officer trying to resuscitate her, suffering the vomit of this demented alcoholic to breath life back into her body, is vivid.  No mention at all of the mouth guard that prevents this from happening, and is always available in police offices, stations and vehicles.  They had a automated defibrillator, and they must have had the mouth guard that prevented this as well.  No mention of it, however.  Nor question from the reporter.

This was a superb effort by the Phoenix Police to take charge of the story and deflect attention from the two real issues.  Why did they need to physically seize, arrest and manhandle Carol Ann Gotbaum, and how did she die in their custody?  Nothing in this report has any bearing on these issues.  These are the smears, not the answers.

Aside to Betsy:  You’ve been an official for a long time, justifying and explaining how government is really here to help people despite the collateral damage and misery it tends to cause.  Does it feel different when it’s your own daughter?  Facile rationalizations by official people, like you, have long insulated police from the responsibility for knee-jerk, simplistic, mindless and usually violent action, to the point where they believe that “following policy” absolves them from responsibility for the death of people.  Is this still good enough for you?

Carol Ann was causing a “disturbance” at the airport.  Notwithstanding the horrible image painted by the police to smear her memory, we still have no idea whether she was justified in being upset about how she was treated when they refused to let her board the plane.  People are allowed to get upset, and sometimes they make their point loudly.  Sometimes they are right to do so, because people aren’t required to be sheep, submitting to the dictates of an airline ticket counter person who can have an enormous impact on a situation without the slightest care in the world.

But maybe Carol Ann was completely wrong to get upset.  Maybe she had no cause at all to raise a ruckus, to scream and disturb all the people around her.  Then what?  Seized, cuffed, arrested, on the ground, knee in the back, grabbed by the arms so hard that finger bruises appear.  Was the need to physically remove Carol Ann from the eyes and ears of others sufficient to do this? 

There are many who say yes, that’s exactly what happens when you don’t comply.  When someone screams and acts crazy, and refuses to calm down when the police tell you to stop, you invite arrest.  When you don’t comply, you give up your right to not be taken physically by police.  And you give up your right to complain about it.  That’s what it means to live in a civilized society.

At some point, we have lost the idea that force begets force.  If a person threatens the safety of another, then they must be restrained.  But if they disturb another, without presenting an imminent threat of harm, what compels the use of force?  Annoyance does not beget force.  Force begets force.  How did we lose this concept?

Worse yet, the immediate use of force to quell disturbance has become acceptable.  Even when force is appropriate, should it be used before efforts are exhausted to calm the situation short of force?  Not any more.  When the police claim that they tried to calm Carol Ann down, they fail to describe how exactly they did so and what happened to make it necessary to end the calming process and begin the use of force.  The reason for this is clear.  They told her to calm down, and when she didn’t, well,  they tried.  Out came the cuffs.

This theme seems to be repeated in almost every citizen-police encounter these days.  If the citizen does not immediately comply with the command of a police officer, the police are justified in resorting to force to seize control of the situation.  Would another 5 minutes of letting the disturbance dissipate have changed things for the cop?  It would have changed things for Carol Ann Gotbaum, who would still be alive.

Note to Self:  Obey police, no matter how right I think I am in my position, so I can go home and see my family again. 

And so, we have an ugly, vomiting Carol Ann, forcibly seized by the Phoenix Police in full crisis smear mode.  Next up, how did she die?  Stay tuned for the next episode, competing autopsies.