Hostage Holder Relinquishes Shells as Siege Continues

After more than 12 hours of silence, an 18-year-old Colorado man holed up in a Harbor Island hotel room with a hostage talked to San Diego police negotiators Wednesday and agreed to give up 12 shotgun shells in exchange for a cooler of ice-cold soda.

Late Wednesday night, police said negotiators would work through the night to resolve the situation.

“We’ll go as long as we have to,” spokesman Dave Cohen said.

Earlier in the day, police, who are withholding food from the man, cut off the water and electricity to his room in the Travelodge Hotel, on the west arm of Harbor Island.

Police said the man identified himself as Randy Dolph of Ft. Collins, Colo.

Dolph had been holding Don Evans, 56, a security guard from El Cajon, hostage in Room 901 since shortly before 1 a.m. Wednesday.

Police, who know no motive for the hostage-taking, said the man had made no demands.

“The most important thing is that the guy has been talking to them,” Cohen said. “It’s hopeful as long as they’re talking.”

Dolph apparently stole a car and drove to San Diego from Ft. Collins, where he walked away from a work-furlough camp where he had been serving time for second-degree burglary, Cohen said.

The car, reported stolen Sunday, was found in the hotel parking lot with seven live shotgun shells inside, Cohen said. Police believe the shotgun was in the car when it was stolen.

By late Wednesday night, Dolph had turned over all his extra shotgun shells and was armed only with the five remaining shells he told police were loaded in the gun.

“What we’re doing is talking to (him) to get him to surrender the gun,” police spokesman Bill Robinson said.

Police do not know why Dolph came to San Diego.

As a sign of good faith during their negotiations, police left a couple of cigarettes outside the hotel room door. Dolph took them inside and shared them with Evans, Cohen said.

About 60 law enforcement people have been at the hotel, including negotiating teams, SWAT team members, patrol officers and an array of police sergeants and lieutenants. They have set up a command post just down the hall from where Dolph and Evans are.

The incident began when the man, armed with a 12-gauge shotgun, approached Evans near the Palm Grill restaurant in the hotel.

A security guard for the Granite Construction Co. in El Cajon, Evans had been working the 7 p.m. to 5 a.m. shift at the hotel, keeping an eye on a site at the restaurant where some remodeling was going on, said Mike Milligan, owner of the construction company.

At gunpoint, the man marched Evans into the hotel lobby and demanded that the clerk on duty give him a key to a room on the ninth floor, Robinson said.

The room, which rents for $175 a night, is a corner suite that overlooks the harbor and has a bedroom, living room and two balconies, said Chris Cullen, a hotel spokesman.

People in rooms on the ninth floor and in a few rooms on the eighth floor were evacuated and moved to different parts of the 212-room hotel, Cullen said.

Despite the hostage situation and law enforcement officials roaming around, Cullen said there has not been a mass exodus of guests.

“We’re operating business as usual,” Cullen said. He said the hotel was about 85% full.