AUSTIN — Austin police have a man in custody who is accused of barricading himself inside of a Northwest Austin hotel restroom and threatening to shoot anyone who walked in on him.
Police said they received the initial disturbance report at 5:45 a.m for the La Quinta Inn in the 11000 block of North Mopac near Braker Lane Tuesday.
An employee said a man, who isn't a guest of the hotel, walked into the lobby and went to use the restroom. After several minutes, the employee asked the man to leave the hotel, to which he didn't comply.
The employee told police that the man said he was going to "shoot [him or her] through the restroom with a gun" if the employee walked in.
Shortly afterward, officers arrived on scene and attempted to remove the man from the restroom. Police said they were told the same thing as the employee: "if they [the officers] came through the restroom, he was going to shoot them as well."
At 7:45 a.m., officials said they used pepper spray to remove the man from the restroom, and he was taken into custody without incident.
Officials have not confirmed if the man was, in fact, armed while he was barricaded inside of the restroom, but they did say it was possible he was on drugs or having some sort of mental crisis.
Police said the incident affected a number of hotel guests who were unable to enter the hotel and or leave their rooms as officials de-escalated the situation.
