Besides the noise of nearby 99 traffic, it was a fairly quiet day at the Kingsburg Fairfield Inn, much different from the scene caught on video surveillance Sunday night.
Jeff Dunn, Kingsburg Police Chief says,"Three suspects entered the lobby of our hotel, two of the suspects kinda stayed in the main lobby area while one obviously carrying a handgun jumped over the counter, went to the cash drawer opened that drawer and took the money insert in it."
Authorities say the robbers appear to be two black men and a black woman. They took off with a couple hundred dollars in cash.
"We were very fortunate that no one was injured and the lobby was pretty vacant," says Chief Dunn.
Just minutes before the Kingsburg robbery, the Holiday Inn in Selma was also hit. The hotel owner tells us a Fresno State Student was doing her homework while manning the front desk. That's when three masked people walked in, held her at gunpoint, and took off with about $400 dollars. Dunn says this appears to be more than just coincidence.
Dunn says, "We are gonna be surprised if they're not related."
Selma resident Karrey George said,"It's scary, I don't know if I wanna stay in a hotel anymore."
"Nothing is safe now, any place, but really this is more safe because everybody knows everybody. We are a small community," says Selma Business Owner, Abe Abuhilal.
Two similar robberies also happened in Fresno County Monday night. The Travelodge in Coalinga was hit just before 10:00 p.m. Less than an hour later, it was the Best Western in Firebaugh. The suspect descriptions in all of these match up.
"We'll be reaching out to those detectives as well and working with them to one see if they are related and then work together to see what we can do to apprehend the suspects involved," says Chief Dunn.
Police say they are working to determine if a fourth person was involved in driving the getaway car. That car has been identified as a light colored Dodge Stratus or Avenger.
Two hotels in Merced and Stanislaus County were also robbed at gunpoint late Monday night and early Tuesday morning. The Fresno County Sheriff's Office says it appears those might be related as well.
TXT 24
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