Ryan Michael Shropshire, 20, of Santa Rosa Beach, was not arrested easily on charges of criminal mischief and resisting an officer without violence. Pepper spray and a stun gun didn’t have any effect on him, and it took six police officers to get in him into handcuffs and leg restraints, according to arrest reports.
Those reports give the following account:
Panama City Beach Police came across Shropshire just before 5 a.m. Wednesday sitting the parking lot of a business near the All American Diner, where a 30-foot section of guardrail had been pulled out of a concrete entrance ramp. Another guardrail was merely bent. The support cable holding a life size statue of the King had been pulled off, and Elvis’ torso had ripped from his legs.
The damage is estimated at more than $1,000.
After getting that out of his system, Shropshire walked to a nearby Purple Haze and sat down in the parking lot. When an officer approached him, he jumped to his feet, began screaming violently about being “God’s chosen one,” and challenging the officer to follow through with a warning to Tase him.
Shropshire, who is 5’10” and weighs 200 pounds, according to the report, would not be restrained despite several ultimately unsuccessful takedown techniques employed by the first responding officer. With the help of five other officers, Shropshire was finally subdued, except for his head, which he continued to bang on the ground.
He was suspected of being under the influence of a controlled substance — police believe he was using a synthetic drug commonly referred to as bath salts, said Chief Drew Whitman — so he was taken to the hospital for treatment before he was booked into the Bay County Jail on charges of criminal mischief and resisting an officer without violence.
