{"id":129769,"date":"2026-01-23T23:18:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T23:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/129769\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T23:18:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T23:18:08","slug":"florida-man-accused-of-throwing-ketchup-packet-at-man-at-st-pete-bus-station-police","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/129769\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida man accused of throwing ketchup packet at man at St. Pete bus station: Police"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p data-v-6c8e215c=\"\">ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. &#8211; A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox13news.com\/tag\/us\/fl\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Florida <\/a>man was arrested Monday after police say he threw an opened ketchup packet at a man while at a bus station, according to a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox13news.com\/tag\/us\/fl\/pinellas\/st-petersburg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">St. Petersburg <\/a>Police Department arrest affidavit.<\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" origination_station=\"WTVT\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-6c8e215c=\"\">The backstory:<\/p>\n<p data-v-6c8e215c=\"\">The affidavit says Austin Simmons, 28, appeared to be passed out at the bus terminal located at 3180 Central Avenue when a man checked to see if he was okay.<\/p>\n<p data-v-6c8e215c=\"\">MORE NEWS: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox13news.com\/news\/florida-man-accused-poisoning-his-girlfriends-maltese-poodle\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Former Bartow police officer accused of poisoning his girlfriend&#8217;s Maltese poodle<\/a><\/p>\n<p data-v-6c8e215c=\"\">Police say Simmons woke up furious and walked toward the man, hurling an opened ketchup packet at him.<\/p>\n<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/simmons-mug-ps-1.23.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-v-0dea8073=\"\"\/> <\/p>\n<p data-v-0dea8073=\"\">Courtesy: St. Petersburg Police Department <\/p>\n<p data-v-6c8e215c=\"\">The man was left with ketchup stains on his jacket, and the affidavit says the packet was leaking onto the ground.<\/p>\n<p data-v-6c8e215c=\"\">SPPD says Simmons told officers he was only trying to give the man a ketchup packet and denied hitting him with the packet.<\/p>\n<p data-v-6c8e215c=\"\">Simmons is facing a felony battery charge. He is being held without bond at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox13news.com\/tag\/us\/fl\/pinellas\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Pinellas County<\/a> Jail after previously being convicted of battery in 2019, according to the affidavit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"group-source-paragraph\" data-v-4fbf7207=\"\">The Source: Information for this story was provided by a St. Petersburg Police Department arrest affidavit.<\/p>\n<p>    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox13news.com\/tag\/us\/fl\/pinellas\/st-petersburg\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-6c8e215c=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">St. Petersburg<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox13news.com\/tag\/crime-publicsafety\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-6c8e215c=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Crime and Public Safety<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. &#8211; A Florida man was arrested Monday after police say he threw an opened ketchup&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":129770,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[630,47,115,1157,202,204,203,199,201,200,628],"class_list":{"0":"post-129769","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-petersburg","8":"tag-crime-publicsafety","9":"tag-fl","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-pinellas","12":"tag-st-pete","13":"tag-st-pete-headlines","14":"tag-st-pete-news","15":"tag-st-petersburg","16":"tag-st-petersburg-headlines","17":"tag-st-petersburg-news","18":"tag-us"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}