A 79-year-old South Carolina man is set to be sentenced Thursday for killing two police officers and wounding five more in an October 2018 ambush he set up after detectives told him they were coming to serve a search warrant on his son.
When the three Florence County Sheriff’s deputies arrived, Frederick Hopkins was waiting in a sniper’s nest he made in a second story room in his upscale Florence neighborhood. He didn’t stop shooting for 30 minutes.
Mr. Hopkins pleaded guilty to two counts of murder and five counts of attempted murder last week in an unannounced hearing more than 100 miles (160 kilometers) from where the shootings took place. His attorney said prosecutors agreed to take the possibility of the death penalty off the table in exchange for the plea.
When Mr. Hopkins is sentenced at noon Thursday, he is almost certain to get life in prison without parole.
Deputies investigating Mr. Hopkins’ adult son for possible sexual abuse called ahead on Oct. 3, 2018, to let him know they were coming with a search warrant.
Mr. Hopkins, a decorated Vietnam War veteran, fired at the deputies before they could get to the front door. He kept shooting as more officers rushed to the scene to save their comrades, investigators said.
Rescuers had to wait for an armored vehicle so they could get close enough to try to save the wounded officers.
Florence Police Sgt. Terrence Carraway, who came to help, died the day of the shooting. Florence County Sheriff’s deputy Farrah Turner, who was one of the detectives investigating the sex abuse allegations, died nearly three weeks later from her wounds.
Mr. Hopkins’, 33-year-old Seth Hopkins, pleaded guilty in 2019 to second-degree criminal sexual conduct with a minor and is serving 20 years in prison.
Frederick Hopkins’ lawyers, prosecutors and the judge have kept much of the case away from reporters. In June, they all agreed to close the courtroom to the media and the public during pre-trial hearings and kept all motions and records off South Carolina’s public court records site.
Mr. Hopkins’ lawyer later said the hearing was to decide if Mr. Hopkins could claim self-defense in the shooting, which was denied.
Reporters were not told of the hearing where Mr. Hopkins pleaded guilty, although the families of the victims and the police agencies were notified.
In previous court appearances and in letters to The Post and Courier of Charleston, Mr. Hopkins has said the court system was trying to railroad him into pleading guilty with little evidence. Mr. Hopkins was an attorney, but agreed to give up his law license in 1984 after he was accused of taking $18,000 of fees improperly.
Mr. Hopkins told the newspaper in March he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder from his time in Vietnam when the officers arrived in what he called “police actions gone awry.” He wrote that he recalls “the assault by more than a dozen officers” dressed in dark uniforms, military helmets with camouflage and loaded pistols “drawn for a violent attack on me!”
By Jeffrey Collins
