Newly released arrest reports provide a detailed account of how a vigil at Pensacola’s Graffiti Bridge turned violent, identifying the victim as Sean Sims, 30, and attributing the use of pepper spray to Troy Donovan Grow, 56, with a separate elbow strike by Larry Wayne Hopkins, 49.
The graffiti bridge, a century-old CSX railroad trestle located on 17th Avenue, has long served as an informal community message board where tributes and political messages are routinely painted and painted over. The city treats the trestle as exempt from its anti-defacement rules. The Sept. 14 gathering honored conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who was shot and killed on Sept. 10 while speaking at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah.
According to the reports, a phone video recorded by Sims shows him approaching the bridge and beginning to paint over a fresh mural of Kirk. A man with a sign swats at Sims; Sims backs away and can be heard saying, “woah, don’t touch me." As a second man charges toward him, “Sims then sprays paint” toward the charging man, investigators wrote. The reports say that the man — identified as Grow — then pulled a can from his pocket and pepper-sprayed Sims. Moments later, the report states, Hopkins elbowed Sims.
Detectives wrote that “Grow later admitted to pepper-spraying Sims.”
Investigators also noted that screenshots of a Facebook post were provided to police and that Hopkins acknowledged writing it when confronted.
"I hope when I knocked you out with my elbow across the back of your neck when you were being a coward & running away felt good," Hopkins wrote. "I'm glad you left in an ambulance tonight. The way you cried victim was exactly what I expected you to do. You are human trash & I'm glad the police had to come pick you off the ground when I knocked you out. To the guy that pepper-sprayed you on the ground ... Kudos sir. I will never sit back & let something like that happen. You deserved what you got. If anybody happens to see video of this please send it to me so I can smile."
Police previously said the victim was transported to a local hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. Officers arrested Grow on Tuesday night on a charge of felony battery. Hopkins was arrested Wednesday night on the same charges.
The reports note that both men have two prior battery convictions, which officers cited in recommending a felony charge under Florida Statute 784.03(2).
