The person charged with the murder of two Florence County Law Enforcement Officers was no stranger to interactions with local law enforcement, incident reports confirm.
Fredrick Hopkins is accused of shooting seven officers in October when deputies were serving a warrant on his home on Ashton Drive in the Vintage Place neighborhood. News13 asked for every report on record filed for Fredrick Hopkins, his son, Seth Hopkins, and every report filed for 932 Ashton Drive and received more than 100 pages of police reports from the Florence County Sheriff’s Office.
In all, the inquiry into incidents at the Hopkins home yielded about two dozen different case reports. Fred Hopkins called deputies to the home more than a dozen times in the last decade, according to the documents.
The reports contain many allegations that Fred Hopkins was a victim of theft and assault. In a burglary report filed in April of 2010, two teens were arrested after stealing 27 guns from the home in Vintage place.
Many of the reports state that the alleged perpetrators were the Hopkins’ own children. In 2011, reports were filed after Fred Hopkins accused his then 16-year-old son of stealing a camera, and $2,634. Multiple reports recount allegations of grand larceny and even burglary involving the same teenager. Reports also detail his conversations with deputies when his daughter stole his car and also several occurrences when weapons or electronics went missing at the same time one of the children ran off.
The Hopkins reports included several mentions of children running away and disappearing for weeks at a time. According to the reports, most of the time, the family didn’t notify law enforcement because the teen would usually come back.
The reports also detail assault calls from the home on Ashton Drive. In February of 2014, deputies arrived after Fred notified the sheriff’s office that his son had punched him. Fred Hopkins told investigators he had an advanced form of cancer and the blow to the chest landed where his chest catheter was located. Just weeks later, deputies showed up again to the home after an argument became physical between the Hopkins and a 13-year-old was punched by her brother. In both instances, Hopkins’ son was arrested for assault and battery and taken to the Florence County Detention Center.
In September 2013, Fredrick Hopkins was arrested for assault and battery after he reportedly attacked a Florence County worker in a marked car who was asked to take photos of the home on Ashton Drive. The worker was employed with the building management department and was called to the location to investigate a home in violation of a county ordinance. According to the report, Fred Hopkins flipped the victim on his back, jerked the camera off his wrist and handed it to his son, Seth Hopkins, to delete the photos off of the device.
The documents also included the report deputies filed when they first learned of alleged sexual assaults happening in the home. According to the incident report, an older sibling came to deputies on September 26, 2018 when another child living in the home admitted to them that Seth Hopkins had assaulted them. Because the older sibling had also been sexually assaulted by Seth, they contacted deputies so the younger sibling wouldn’t have to go through the same trauma, the report states.
Seth Hopkins and Fred Hopkins are still being held at the Florence County Detention Center without bond, according to Florence County booking records.