A 19-year-old man accused of vandalizing an LGBTQ pride mural in Delray Beach pleaded not guilty on Thursday, though only after some confusion in Palm Beach County court led the judge to issue a warrant for his arrest.
Dylan Brewer, of Clearwater, was arrested on Feb. 12, a week after police said he performed burnouts on the Pride mural in a dark pickup truck with a President Trump flag attached. Witnesses and surveillance cameras recorded the incident, Brewer and the license plate, but Brewer left before officers arrived, according to the probable cause affidavit.
He faces one count of felony criminal mischief over $1,000 and one count of reckless driving.
Witnesses had told police they saw Brewer deface the mural multiple times, according to the affidavit. Several people turned in cellphone video of the burnouts, and one person followed the truck, recording the license plate and the driver, described as a young white man in a cowboy hat. The license plate is registered to Brewer’s parents.
Two friends of Brewer’s who were in the truck with him provided sworn statements to police, according to the affidavit. They said he was the only one driving the truck; one said he did not know Brewer planned to do burnouts, though he had recently modified his truck in order to do burnouts more easily.
Judge Daliah Weiss had called Brewer and his attorney’s names at the arraignment Thursday morning. When neither responded, she issued a bench warrant for Brewer’s arrest, as is common practice.
Brewer’s attorney, Richard Ozelie, told the South Florida Sentinel that they hadn’t attended the arraignment Thursday because it wasn’t supposed to happen: Ozelie had already filed a waiver of arraignment to go along with a not guilty plea. But the waiver “was inadvertently not docketed by the Clerk’s Office,” Ozelie said in an email.
Ozelie later appeared before the judge that same morning over Zoom and had the warrant withdrawn, court records show. He declined to comment further on the case.
Rand Hoch, a retired judge and president and founder of the Palm Beach County Human Rights Council, told the Sun Sentinel that he had sat through all of the arraignments Thursday morning and thought it “odd” initially when Brewer and Ozelie did not show up. He was also surprised by the decision to plead not guilty.
“Here’s a guy who was caught on video, two passengers identified it as him, and one of them stated that he had the car retrofitted so it could do more damage doing burnouts,” Hoch said. “One would think he would say ‘yeah, I did it’ and throw himself on the mercy of the court and see what they do for sentencing.”
The HRC helped the city pay for the mural initially, Hoch said. He said he considers himself a victim in the case.
In 2022, Alexander Jerich, 20, of Lake Worth Beach, pleaded guilty to the same charges Brewer is facing for defacing the same mural in 2021 while driving in a birthday rally for Trump. He was sentenced to probation, which recently ended, and was ordered to write a 25-page essay about the victims of the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando. Hoch described the sentence as a “slap on the wrist.”
Two other cases since then have not yet led to arrests. Just over a year ago, a truck driver burned tire marks into the Pride flag mural on Sebastian Street between State Road A1A and Seabreeze Boulevard near a part of Fort Lauderdale’s beach that is widely known as a LGBTQ beach.
Last June, a motorcyclist burned tire marks into the Pride flag mural at an intersection in Boynton Beach. A police report said the motorcyclist took photos of the damage and his helmet appeared to have a camera mounted on it.
The Delray Beach mural was later painted over. Now, it is defaced again, likely to stay that way in order to be used as evidence. Each repainting, Hoch estimates, should cost around $8,000.
Meanwhile, an online fundraiser for Brewer’s legal expenses has raised close to $34,000, according to its website. Several comments expressed hatred towards LGBTQ people; others called the charges extreme and politically motivated.
Hoch, who had read the comments, feels the opposite.
“With all the hate crimes happening right now, especially in Florida, somebody’s got to hold these people accountable,” he said. “And that’s what judges are there for … no one expects this kid to be in jail for five years but some jail time wouldn’t be bad and might send a message to other kids.”
Staff writer Angie DiMichele contributed to this report.
