Mother Doubts Teen Took Life While Handcuffed by Police Officers
Police officers reported that Sarah Wilson, a 19-year-old Virginia resident, shot herself while handcuffed. According to law enforcement, Wilson in the passenger seat of a vehicle being driven by 27-year-old Holden Medlin when officers pulled it over for what at first appeared to be a routine traffic stop. Medlin became disorderly during the stop and resisted arrest, causing officers to Taser him. Then, according to the report, Wilson grabbed a gun from inside the car after she was already out and shot herself in the head.
Medlin was later booked into the Chesapeake City Jail on drug charges and counts of obstruction with force, possession of a firearm by a felon, and possession of a firearm with narcotics. Now, Wilson’s mother, Dawn, has a lot of questions about what really happened that afternoon.
“In all of her life I have never known of her to shoot a gun, own a gun, or even hold a gun,” said Dawn, who also has two younger daughters and has claimed officers offered her a different version of events than the one given to the media. She was told her daughter was handcuffed but was still able to get hold of the revolver. She said she deserves to know what actually happened to her.
One of Sarah’s friends shared a cell phone video after the incident on her Facebook page that was evidentially recorded by a bystander at the scene. In the video, a woman’s body is seen laying on the ground next to a white sedan, with police officers surrounding it. At one point, a bystander says to another, “Police shot the b****.”
Chesapeake police spokesperson Lt. Leo Kosinski later responded to the video and to Dawn’s questions, “The police did not shoot her… she died from suicide.” Kosinski said the person who was recording arrived at the scene well after the fact. “He made that up. He did not see anything,” police officers said.
Dawn Wilson alleged one of the officers was wearing a body camera, but when she asked about the footage, she was told that the device had malfunctioned. Lt. Kosinski further clarified the body camera did not malfunction. However, Medlin knocked it off the officer’s uniform during the struggle.
Kosinski confirmed that Wilson had her hands in restraints behind her back at the time she took her own life. “If you have anything motivating you and you’re limber enough, you can wiggle,” he said, adding that contrary to what was originally stated, the vehicle was not pulled over routinely, but “with legitimate probable cause.”
Sarah’s social media accounts reveal she was in a relationship with Holden Medlin at the time. In March of this year, she shared on her Facebook page “why do people never talk about the part of depression when you just don’t want anything anymore?…you just spend your day kinda waiting for it to end.” Her mother denied the teen ever had a history of depression, although she said she could be moody at times. Sarah’s friend who shared the video has launched a GoFundMe page to help the family with Sarah’s funeral expenses.
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Handcuffed woman, 19, fatally shot herself, police say, but mother expresses doubts
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