Woman shot by Winter Park police during well-being check found not guilty

Charges stemmed from 2017 incident

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – A woman was found not guilty Thursday night of aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer following a jury trial more than four years after she was shot by a Winter Park police officer in her bed during a well-being check.

Bobbie Sapp, 50, is a registered nurse with no criminal past. Ahead of the trial, she told News 6 she believed her ex-boyfriend used the well-being check as retaliation.

Sapp was originally charged with two counts of attempted murder of a law enforcement officer with a firearm and three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon on a law enforcement officer. The state dropped the attempted murder charges before the trial started.

If convicted, she faced life in prison.

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Sapp was found not guilty on all counts Thursday evening following a jury trial.

The trial concludes events that unfolded after Sapp’s ex-boyfriend called police in September 2017.

Sapp was asleep in the Winter Park home at the time and said she slept with a firearm because she feared her ex was coming back to the house.

“My girlfriend was threatening suicide last night. I just came to the house trying to get in,” Sapp’s ex-boyfriend told the 911 operator, later saying, “She’s threatened suicide by cop before.”

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“I was asleep in my bed. I was not at all contemplating a suicide or suicide by cop,” Sapp told News 6 in October 2019.

When police arrived, Sapp’s ex showed them how to enter the house, according to an interview with Officer Jeff Marcum.

Then, the three officers made their way into the house, through the living room, and finally to Sapp’s bedroom where she was sleeping.

Marcum, a 23-year-veteran with the Winter Park Police Department, describes in an interview with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement what happened next.

“I’m thinking about the call ‘suicide by cop’,” Marcum said. “We’re yelling at her to, you know, ‘Let us see your hands, let us see your hands.’”

Sapp, who is legally blind, said she did not have her glasses on during the incident.

“I couldn’t identify anybody, but I remember there being shadowy figures standing in my room. They pulled the covers off me,” she said.

“At that point, when she pulled the cover, Ms. Sapp immediately came up with a handgun and pointed it right at us,” Marcum told investigators.

Sapp was then struck with a Taser and shot by Marcum.


About the Author:

Emmy Award-winning reporter Louis Bolden joined the News 6 team in September of 2001 and hasn't gotten a moment's rest since. Louis has been a General Assignment Reporter for News 6 and Weekend Morning Anchor. He joined the Special Projects/Investigative Unit in 2014.

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