Woman who died at Sea-Tac is ID'd

A woman who died Saturday while being detained on suspicion of having drug paraphernalia at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport was a Seattle bank executive with no criminal history.

Desseria B. Whitmore, 52, was an assistant vice president at Bank of America and had been honored as a youth mentor by The YMCA of Greater Seattle Black Achievers Program.

The cause of her death still was being determined yesterday, the King County Medical Examiner's Office said.

Authorities claim Whitmore died after she swallowed a plastic bag they thought contained drugs.

According to Port of Seattle police, Whitmore and a traveling companion were headed for a flight to Spokane when federal screeners pulled them aside after finding what they thought was a marijuana pipe in Whitmore's carry-on luggage.

When Port police arrived, Whitmore tried to walk away and bystanders then saw her trying to swallow something, said Bob Parker, spokesman for the Port of Seattle, which operates the airport.

As an officer tried to handcuff her, Whitmore started flailing, Parker said. The officer pushed her over a table and then took her to the floor. He put his knee on her back between her shoulder blades to pin her down, Parker said.

She continued to struggle until another officer arrived to help handcuff her, Parker said.

"At that point, she was still talking, not necessarily coherently, saying, 'Oh God,' " said Parker, reading from an initial incident report.

"So she was still breathing."

Officers found nothing in her hands or mouth, and she refused to spit the item out, Parker said.

She soon began having trouble breathing, and paramedics, who had been called immediately, were unable to revive her, Parker said.

Although police initially reported that she swallowed a plastic bag that they thought contained drugs, Parker said yesterday that no one actually saw what she was trying to swallow.

Her luggage later was found to contain small amounts of marijuana and crack cocaine, Parker said, which he described as "personal-use amounts."

"The disappointment we all have here is that had she just given up her drugs she probably would have just been given a citation and not missed her flight," Parker said. "That's what really hurts, and it hurts us, too."

Parker said people are caught by screeners with small amounts of drugs or paraphernalia about once a day. Typically, they receive a citation either on the spot or later by mail and are allowed to catch their flights.

The officers have not been placed on leave and so far are not being investigated, Parker said.

"Of course, we're keeping an open mind depending on what the autopsy says," Parker said.

But, he added, there was no indication that this was a "deadly force situation where they killed her."

Whitmore was on her way to Spokane to settle her father's estate, said a family member. Her father had recently died, and Whitmore was meeting her sister and two brothers, said their aunt in Salt Lake City.

Whitmore worked in commercial banking at Bank of America, a bank spokesman said.

She formerly worked at Seafirst before it was purchased by Bank of America. In 1996, she was one of 27 local business executives honored by The YMCA of Greater Seattle for volunteering as youth mentors.

Sheree Bell, a co-worker and former youth volunteer with Whitmore, said she was "stunned" to hear of the drug allegations.

"Based on the time I spent with her, this did not at all sum up her character," Bell said.

Bell said Whitmore never missed a Saturday while volunteering for the youth program, where she helped children learn to read and write and attended field trips with them.

She won awards at work for customer service, Bell said.

"She was really a nice person, and she took her job seriously," Bell said.

Whitmore's traveling companion could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Ray Rivera: 206-464-2926 or rayrivera@seattletimes.com