Masked gunmen rob two Costa Mesa motels

Deepa Bharath

Masked gunmen, who robbed two local motels on Sunday night, are

believed to have been responsible for three similar heists in Orange

County, officials said.

The two robberies in Costa Mesa occurred within 20 minutes of each

other, Costa Mesa Police Lt. Dale Birney said.

The first of the two robberies happened a little after 8:30 p.m.

Sunday at the Holiday Inn Express in the 2000 block of Newport

Boulevard, he said.

Two men wearing ski masks and armed with handguns barged into the

hotel’s lobby and demanded money from the desk clerk, Birney said.

“The clerk handed them the money, and they ran out the door,” he

said.

The second robbery, which happened a few minutes before 9 p.m. at

the Country Inn in the 300 block of South East Bristol Street, was

almost identical, Birney said.

The amount of money taken was not disclosed.

No one was hurt in either of the incidents, and no shots were

fired, he said.

Officials reported two similar incidents in Santa Ana and one in

Irvine, Birney said.

“We don’t know the circumstances of the robberies in the other

cities,” he said. “But the ones in our city seem very similar.”

In both Costa Mesa incidents, one of the men was wearing a black

sweatshirt and the other was wearing a red jacket, Birney said.

It is not unusual to find robbers targeting specific locations

such as banks or hotels, he said.

“They’ll stick to that kind of an establishment for whatever

reason,” Birney said. “These type of incidents don’t happen often in

our cities, but from time to time, we do see a series of such similar

incidents.”

Anyone with information is asked to call the Costa Mesa Police

Department at (714) 754-5281.