‘Burn this place down’: 2 Alabama men accused of inciting riot in Florida Panhandle

PANAMA CITY BEACH, Fla. — Two Alabama men are accused of inciting a riot two weeks ago in a Florida Panhandle city, encouraging followers to “burn this place down,” authorities said.

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Demarion Ty’Quan Cooper, 20, of Troy, and Rashad Boyce Glasper, 25, of Wetumpka, were arrested Thursday in their homes for allegedly inciting or encouraging a riot in Panama City Beach, the News Herald of Panama City reported.

Cooper was charged with one count of inciting or encouraging a riot, according to Bay County Sheriff’s Office online booking records. Glasper, who faces the same charges, was being held in Elmore County, Alabama, pending extradition to Florida, according to Elmore County Sheriff’s Office online booking records.

The charges against the two men stemmed from several incidents of disorder and violence in Panama City Beach between March 25 and March 27, dubbed “Panamaniac,” which ended in a shooting, WSFA-TV reported.

Cooper is accused of posting to followers on social media, urging them to “mask up, glove up, let’s burn this place down.”

In a news release, police said officers determined that the two men “played a substantial role in promoting and influencing their followers to create this disorder with a propensity for violence.”

“Both of them were here during the weekend that everybody remembers, committing a multitude of crimes,” Panama City Beach Police Chief J.R. Talamantez said in a statement. “(They’re) partly responsible for what we saw.”

Officials arrested 161 people and 75 illegal guns during the disturbance, the News Herald reported.

Talamantez said Cooper and Glasper were not the only promoters of the event, adding that more arrests were expected, according to the newspaper.

Cooper is also awaiting trial in Dothan, Alabama, on charges that he shot into an occupied home in 2020, WTVY-TV reported. In a court motion, Houston County Assistant District Attorney J.T. Jones said Cooper’s arrest violated the conditions of his $30,000 bond release in Alabama, according to the television station.

“These are not the type of people we want visiting Panama City Beach, (and) I think everybody could agree,” Talamantez said in a statement. “We want people to play with sandcastles and sand buckets, not semi-automatic weapons.”

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