Guests of Northeast Side Motel 6 wake up to SWAT standoff

SAN ANTONIO – Announcements over loudspeakers and the sounds of pepper spray fired across several rooms replaced alarm clocks and wake-up calls at a Northeast Side motel early Thursday morning.

Guests at the Motel 6 near Interstate 35 and Rittiman Road were awakened by the commotion that began around 4 a.m. when a man waved at a San Antonio police officer.

“The victim reported to the officer that she had been robbed and assaulted,” said Ximena Alvarez, public relations manager for the San Antonio Police Department.

Alvarez said the man was bleeding from his head and body when the officer contacted him.

After a while, the police determined that the robbery and assault suspects were scattered across at least two rooms in the motel.

Officers called in the SWAT team when they had no luck making contact with anyone in the rooms.

A negotiator was heard making an announcement over a loudspeaker, telling people in the targeted rooms that they were surrounded and that they should exit peacefully.

A SWAT officer also fired tear gas into the rooms from the top of a truck.

Jaelynnee Dorsey said she was in one of the rooms at the time.

“I think someone is shooting at us,” he said. “No, it’s the cops and they say, ‘Get out.’ To leave.'”

“(The pepper spray) was painful,” Dorsey said. “I felt like I was going to die, like I couldn’t breathe.”

Dorsey and several others were eventually led out of the rooms in handcuffs. However, he spoke to KSAT 12 News after his release.

“They just wanted to ask me questions about everyone in ‘6’. But I don’t know anyone here, so they let me go,” Dorsey said.

Police could not give an exact number of people detained. However, they later reported that only two of them (a man and a woman) were arrested on unspecified charges.

At least one woman said she was evacuated from her room during this escalation.

Others seemed unaware of what was happening and went about their usual routine despite the heavy police presence.

But police at the motel are not an uncommon sight.

Data from SAPD shows officers have been called to the property more than 150 times since last October for crimes such as robbery, disturbances and shootings.