For the past two days, an ex-employee of the Elk Inn has been staying at the hotel. Before I go any further, let me tell you about this individual. His nickname is RT*. If I were to list his real name and you were to type it into Google, you would find an arrest record in which RT was banned from Colorado State University's campus for sending his ex-girlfriend over 200 text messages in one day. Here's a little snippet from the article: "according to police, [RT] said he was planning to take money out of the bank, buy a gun at a pawnshop, and then kill her if she didn't call him back. 'Either you call me right now or I'm ending your life,' reads one message included in police arrest report. 'If you're at the library I'm going to find you, what do you think is gonna happen, someone there gonna protect you.'"
When I first heard RT was coming to stay at the hotel, all of the other front desk agents groaned and rolled their eyes. They showed me the article about his arrest, recounted stories of his quick temper and blatant sexism towards women, how he threatened "to put a woman in a body bag" while working at the Elk Inn's front desk, and how he was fired shortly after that. RT has also sent my roommate, who he has never met before and randomly found on Facebook, text messages asking to see naked photos and continually asks if she'd like to come to his cabin. After being fired from the Elk Inn, RT was hired by another hotel, attempted to woo a female guest and when she declined his advances he "kicked down her door" (this was relayed to me by someone who worked at that hotel with him at the time). After kicking down this woman's door, RT was kicked out of that hotel, came to the bar at the Elk Inn, started a fight with someone, and was thrown out of the Elk Inn and told he was no longer allowed on the property.
Why then, you may ask, was he staying at the Elk Inn the past two nights? Because the Rooms Manager of the hotel, Hans, thinks RT is awesome and made a "secret" reservation for him.
And thus brings us to what happened yesterday:
After already staying in the hotel/visiting Estes for an unknown reason the day before, Hans gave RT another super discounted room last night. Around 4pm, RT checked-in with a very petite girl, who Apple and I could immediately tell was drugged out. We had RT's credit card information for incidentals from the previous stay (he paid cash on the room) and he had the obviously twitching girl put her debit card down to pay for this new room. They then went off and weren't seen again except for a brief moment when I walked by them during my break.
Around 9:30pm a guest on the fourth floor called the front desk asking for new batteries for his TV remote. I called our maintenance department and asked Doug to bring up some batteries. About ten minutes later Doug radioed the front desk and said that the Manager on Duty, Cookie, needed to come to the fourth floor right away. Before he even made it up there, Doug told Cookie that they needed to call 911. Apple and I stayed at the front desk wondering what was happening. We hypothesized that the man who wanted the new batteries was either throwing a fit or he was having a heart attack. A few minutes later, Doug came down to the front desk and asked who was in Room 410. I pulled up the record in the computer: RT.
"RT?!" Doug said (he was the one who worked with RT when he kicked down the door), "what the fuck is he doing here?"
"Hans let him in," Apple said.
"He's not allowed in this hotel," Doug said. Elk Inn's bartender was walking through the lobby and asked what the commotion was about. "RT is in the hotel and he and his friend our tripping on acid and just beat the shit out of each other," Doug explained. The bartender also exclaimed his disgust and shock that RT was in the hotel. Apple told him that Hans had been letting RT stay at the hotel for a super discounted rate.
"So what's going on?" the bartender asked.
"They've destroyed that room," Doug said, "there's blood everywhere, there's a hole in the wall, the other guy's face is all bashed in."
"Where's RT?"
"He ran."
"Probably because he knows he's going to get arrested," Apple chimed in.
Doug said Cookie had already called the cops. He and the bartender went back up to the fourth floor to see what they should do before the cops arrived.
Apple and I knew that this was not only Hans's fault for letting RT into the hotel, but we also knew that Hans was currently living in the hotel because he recently sold his house and doesn't have a new one yet. Apple texted Hans to let him know what was going on. I answered the desk phone and found a very annoyed Room 408 saying that someone was banging on their door, trying to get inside. I told him that there was a fight in Rm 410, we were aware of the situation, and that the cops were on the way. As soon as I hung up the phone, three cops strolled into the lobby. I showed them how to get to the fourth floor and they went separate directions to try to head off anyone who may try to flee the scene.
Radio-less, Apple and I stood at the front desk and waited for some news. An ambulance arrived and I told the EMTs how to get to the fourth floor. Following the protocol of the Front Desk Test Apple and I recently had to take, we decided to call the General Manager and let him know what was going on. While Apple called him, I took another front desk call, this time from Room 419. The woman sounded panicked and asked if the people that were causing the disturbance were going to stay in the hotel. She said that she and her husband had a baby with them and were worried about their safety. I told them that I was fairly sure that the people in 410 were all going to be escorted off the property, but that I would call them back once I knew for sure. No sooner had I hung up the phone than it rang again and this time it was one of the servers from our restaurant. She was in the employee housing behind the hotel and said that RT was there and was trying to hide in one of the rooms. "He's covered in blood," she said. Apple called Cookie and told him to send the cops to our dorms ASAP.
Guests continued to come to the front desk and ask if everything was okay. One couple said that there was blood on the outside of 410's door and said they hoped everyone was well. "They sort of brought this on themselves," Apple said.
By 10:30pm, RT's "friend" had been loaded into an ambulance and the twitchy girl had been sent to the police station to detox. Apple walked one of the officers back up to the room so that he could take photos of the damage. While she was gone, I watched another officer walk RT to the front of the building and sit him down on a bench right outside our automatic doors. I tried to see he if he was handcuffed, but couldn't tell. Doug came back to the front desk and said that RT was getting off with a warning. The cops were making him wait outside for a friend to pick him up.
Let's just take a moment to point out that RT, although a psychotic, messed-up individual with an arrest record, is an attractive white man. He drops acid, beats a guy with a hotel lamp (yes - he did not just hit his "friend" with his fists, but actually took a lamp to the guy's face), destroys a hotel room, trespasses on private property (he's not allowed in the employee housing), and walks off with just a warning. Do you think a Black or Hispanic man would have walked off sans handcuffs? Doubtful.
Also, Hans never responded to Apple's text message. Cookie called Hans from the fourth floor before the cops arrived and Hans said, "I'm not dealing with this." Hans, the only person out of 20+ employees to let an ex-felon/ex-fired employee - a man with a history of violent acts - back into the hotel, did not want to deal with the mess he had created...
Right before 11pm, the Night Auditor arrived and we filled her in and everything that had happened. Cookie encouraged her and I, the only two people who had not seen 410's damage, to go up to the room to see what had happened.
Maybe I should have worked for the hotel that inspired The Shining. Evil spirits and REDRUM aren't looking half bad right now.
*Name is changed because this boy is psychotic.
I think it's time to go home. Adventure or not, this is starting to sound a bit dangerous.
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