Police Say 19 Year Old Girl Shot Herself In Mouth With Hands Cuffed Behind Back
According to a statement from Virginia Police, a 19-year-old girl shot herself in the mouth while her hands were cuffed behind her back.
The incident began when the victim, Sarah Wilson, and her boyfriend were arrested for drugs after a traffic stop.
What happened next seems almost impossible.
Fox Reported that, Police said they handcuffed Wilson and, while attempting to apprehend her boyfriend, 27-year-old Holden Medlin, he became combative and ran away from the scene. Cops then reportedly left Wilson handcuffed with her hands behind her back as they ran to catch Medlin. While unattended, police say, she was able to grab a weapon out of the Lexus, “contorted” her body and shot herself through the mouth.
Police launched an internal investigation into the girl’s passing, but the police are refusing to tell the public the results of the investigation, although it has been reported that the investigation is complete.
Recently, a local medical examiner ruled Wilson’s death a suicide, but many people are finding the official story hard to believe, especially the family and friends of the young girl.
Wilson’s mother Dawn says that her daughter wouldn’t even know how to shoot a gun, and that there are many holes and discrepancies in the official story.
“In all of her life, I have never known of her to shoot a gun, own a gun, or even hold a gun. There is a few different stories, but they all end the same: that the police shot her. Things are not matching up. Somewhere, somehow, there is a discrepancy,” Dawn told reporters after the initial story broke.
Another suspicious aspect of this story is that the officers on the scene were wearing body cameras at the time, which could, of course, confirm their side of the story. However, these body cameras were mysteriously not working at the time of the shooting. The officers told investigators that the camera was knocked off the officer’s uniform “during the struggle” with Wilson’s boyfriend.
According to Fox, “Wilson’s boyfriend, Medlin, was reportedly being monitored by police for some time before the arrest. When officers approached his car the day of the incident, he allegedly swallowed a “golf-ball sized-bag” of an unknown substance. Police then found 11 oxycodone pills, a syringe and other drug paraphernalia, a rifle and ammunition. He was later charged with possession of oxycodone, possession of suboxone, possession of paraphernalia, possession of a firearm with a schedule I or II drug, fleeing from a law enforcement officer, and being a felon in possession of a firearm.”
Below is footage that was taken at the scene just after the shooting. A bystander managed to record the scene with their cellphone.
Sadly, this is not the first time that something like this has happened. In 2012, Police in Jonesboro, Arkansas were in custody of a 21-year old black man named Chavis Carter, and a very similar situation played out, where they claim that she shot himself in the back of the police car while he had his hands cuffed behind his back. This was after police searched him twice and found no weapon him. Police were later forced to release dash cam footage which did not give any conclusive evidence because the cameras were not aimed at the suspect at the time. Carter’s passing was also ruled a suicide.
It seems very unlikely that these cases actually were suicide, but if they were, it says some very nasty things about our prison system, that someone would rather die than go to jail. Should we be condemning drug users and addicts to dungeons? Places that are so terrible that they might rather be dead than going there?
In each of these cases, police were enforcing drug laws instead of fighting actual crime, and people who weren’t actually hurting anyone ended up dead. People who are addicted to drugs or alcohol need professional help and treatment, not imprisonment, and especially not this type of treatment.
What do you think? Do you believe the official side of the story in this case? Do you think it is possible for someone to shoot themselves in the manner that police describe? Or is this simply a matter of someone being afraid of going away to prison?
Photo Credit: The Daily Mail