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Crime Briefs: Five arrested in one motel room, two make a getaway on skateboards

A whole group of people got busted at the Silver Spruce Motel in Glenwood Springs on Feb. 16 after a desk clerk reported just before 7 a.m. that two males on long skateboards were stealing a television from the motel.

A guest alerted the hotel clerk to the theft. The men were described as “Hispanic males around twenty years of age in ski coats.” While Glenwood Springs police officers were at the motel, a sergeant advised over the radio that he was “in contact with two male suspects and a television on Devereux Road by Centennial Street.” The men were 20 and 21 years old.

The 20-year-old was arrested on charges of theft and second degree criminal trespass. The 21-year-old was arrested on the same charges, but when his backpack was taken for inventory, a bag of a white crystal substance was found in it that tested presumptive positive for 6.6 grams of methamphetamine.

“Also in the backpack were numerous butane lighters, glass pipe, pocket mirror with white reside, and a small scale with a white powdery residue that is known from training and experience to be commonly used to measure drugs before being sold,” an officer wrote in the report.

The 21-year-old therefore faced additional charges of unlawful possession of a Schedule II controlled substance, unlawful possession with the intent to distribute and possession of drug paraphernalia.

Back at the motel, the hotel clerk and officers went to the hotel room of the skateboard men to find if the television was taken from there or elsewhere in the motel.

“(The clerk) knocked on the door and a male answered. I immediately smelled the strong odor of marijuana coming from that room,” an officer wrote in the report. The clerk saw that the television was still in place, but advised the officer that the man was not registered with the motel.

The clerk notified the owner, who asked that officers kick everyone in the motel room out.

When officers went to the room to advise the occupants of their eviction, the same 26-year-old man from earlier answered the door. When asked for his name, he gave what was later proven to be a false name. Another man, age 31, in the room did the same.

Officers spoke with a woman who, when they ran her name, came up with a warrant out of Gunnison County for failure to appear. She was arrested on that warrant.

As the woman was being put in the patrol vehicle, officers noticed the two men loading their belongings in a gold Toyota RAV-4. A disturbance call had been issued the day before where a gold Toyota RAV-4 fled containing multiple people with outstanding arrest warrants. Officers requested photos of the parties involved. The photos matched the 31-year-old man.

Upon further questioning, both men admitted to their real identities.

The 26-year-old was arrested on his warrant for failure to appear out of Eagle County. During a search of his person, a glass pipe with white residue was found, along with “a jar of marijuana,” a marijuana joint, a scale and two tablets of Xanax, a Schedule IV controlled substance. So, in addition to the warrant, he was arrested for unlawful possession of a Schedule IV controlled substance, possession of drug paraphernalia and criminal impersonation.

The 31-year-old man was arrested for his outstanding warrants and criminal impersonation.

POOL DAY ROBBERY

Shortly before 4:30 a.m. Feb. 21, Parachute police were notified of a burglary at the Grand Vista Hotel. An employee reported that “while she was in the back doing laundry, someone pried open the front desk’s cash drawer and took it,” according to the arrest affidavit.

When the officer arrived on the scene, he spoke to the aforementioned employee, who was crying, and the general manager. The employee said when she returned to the front desk area from the laundry room, one of the front desk drawers was open and missing, but the cash drawer’s lock and the door to the front desk area were both still locked. Surveillance cameras of the front desk area are in the laundry room, but the employee “stated that she did not observe anyone on the camera.”

The officer reviewed video with the hotel general manager. In the video, a woman enters the hotel through the front door and says something to the employee. The general manager identifies the woman as a former employee. The current employee says she is friends with the 35-year-old woman.

The woman then walked toward the pool and public restroom area of the hotel. The woman walked into the pool area and to the exterior door. It then appears she propped the door open. The woman then exited the pool area, went to the public restroom and back to the front desk. She and the current employee then both left, “which (the employee) described as (them) going outside to smoke cigarettes together.”

“Shortly after (the woman) propped open the hotel pool area’s exterior back door, I observed an unidentified husky male subject … enter the hotel through the propped open door,” the officer wrote in the report. He described the subject as wearing a sweatshirt with the hood up, a bandana over his face and dark-colored gloves.

The man approached and hopped over the front desk and then went directly to the cash drawers. He pried the two of them open with a hand tool. He took the cash and other items from inside the cash drawers, and went down the hallway to the bathroom with one of the drawers. Footage then shows him leaving the bathroom and hotel, but without the drawer. The woman is seen leaving the hotel soon after.

The hotel manager and employee told the officer the value of the cash taken was around $450, and the key to the vault was also missing. The damage to the cash drawers was estimated as less than $100. The missing cash drawer was found in the trashcan in the bathroom.

Parachute officers then went to the woman’s residence where she was home. She denied propping open the door and being at the hotel with any male subject. She said she was just there to get her W-2 form. Even after the officer said he saw the footage, she denied any involvement.

She was arrested on felony charges of second-degree burglary and conspiracy, with misdemeanors of theft and criminal mischief.


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