Creating Relationships and Safe Hotels (CRASH)

It's not uncommon to watch the news and hear of a fugitive caught in a hotel or a methamphetamine lab being uncovered in a hotel. Hotels are a haven for the criminal element because the are able to move around daily and they have a minimal chance that their illegal activities will be detected. By the nature of hotels, they house a very diverse population ranging from business travelers to "Americas Most Wanted." In many hotels, the majority of the guests are upstanding citizens. It is the job for the hotel staff and police to identify the criminal element that lingers in every hotel.

In July 2000, the Woodbury Police Department formalized a hotel interdiction program that concentrates on developing relationships between the hotels and the police department with the primary focus on keeping the undesirable guests out of the hotel and educating hotel employees how to make their hotels safer.

Officers Jeff Gottstein and Jeff Snyder developed the program over several years. It was determined that there was a large amount of illegal activity taking place within the hotels that was not being detected by the police or hotel staff. The illegal activities included narcotics, prostitution, forgery, and underage consumption of alcohol, to name a few. It was also determined that there were many people staying in the hotels that had warrants for their arrest.

Minnesota law requires hotel operators to obtain numerous pieces of information from guests when they check in. The law requires hotel staff to obtain the name and home address of the guest and anyone travelling with the guest In addition, the guests must provide the license plate number, make, and model of any cars that are associated with the group. The law also requires the hotel operators to provide the registration information to any law enforcement officer and doesn't require the officer to obtain a subpoena or search warrant to obtain the information. Failure for a hotel operator to provide the information to the police upon request is a crime.

Utilizing the Minnesota State Statutes as the backbone of the program, Officers Gottstein and Snyder began to make contact with all of the managers of the hotels. At first, many of the managers were skeptical of the program. However, over a short period of time, Officers Gottstein and Snyder began to develop a very strong and comfortable rapport with the staff at the hotels.

As part of the CRASH program and to fulfil the obligation of educating hotel employees, the police department offers training sessions to all hotel employees that cover hotel related laws, routine surveillance and observation techniques, evaluation of potential problem guests, response to crimes in progress, response to calls for assistance, fire emergencies, first aid response, maintenance checks, parking lot patrols, hotel record keeping, internal security issues, and being a good witness.

Prior to recognizing the problem within the hotels, police officers would only locate problems occasionally and calls for service to the hotels were minimal. Since the inception of the program, self initiated interdiction and risen dramatically and calls for service have also increased as a result of the increased awareness by the hotel staff.

Many of the situations that are uncovered are directly as a result of looking through the registration information on a daily basis for familiar names of people that are commonly involved in criminal activity. In addition, walk thru's and "knock and talks" also yield very positive results. . We are currently working on a multi-agency intelligence database accessible via the internet that will centralize information on criminal activities taking place within the hotels in the Minneapolis / St. Paul area. The intention of the database is that officers can be share information about groups, who stay in hotels, whose primary activities are illegal.

This program has spread to several cities within the Minneapolis/St. Paul area and we continue to get many requests for information on this program. The heart of the program is geared towards Community Policing and Problem Oriented Policing models. The Woodbury Police Department offers training to law enforcement agencies (CRASH Course) on the CRASH program. For more information contact the Woodbury Police Department at (651) 714-3600 or by e-mail at police@ci.woodbury.mn.us.