Baseball

Weapons Cache Seized at Denver Hotel Near Stadium Hosting All-Star Game


The police in Denver seized 16 long guns, body armor and more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition on Friday at a hotel about two blocks from the stadium where the Major League Baseball All-Star Game is to be played this week, according to officials and local reports.

Three men and one woman were arrested at the Maven Hotel, Denver police said in a statement. The hotel, on Wazee Street, is near Coors Field, where some of baseball’s biggest stars are set to face off on Tuesday in the All-Star Game.

The police, who had search warrants and were acting on a tip from a hotel employee, seized weapons and drugs from two rooms at the hotel, the police said at a news conference on Sunday.

One of the rooms was on the eighth floor with a balcony overlooking the downtown area, The Denver Post reported. The police on Sunday would not specify what was seized, but The Post reported more than a dozen long guns were among the weapons recovered.

The police did not explicitly say if those arrested had stockpiled the weapons in preparation for an attack similar to the 2017 Las Vegas shooting in which a man fired from his upper-story hotel room at crowds attending a music festival, killing 58 and injuring hundreds.

“We need to identify exactly, to the extent possible, why individuals were here in the first place — why proximity to downtown,” the city’s police chief, Paul M. Pazen, said.

The F.B.I. office in Denver said it did not believe that the arrests were connected to terrorism. “We are not aware of any threat to the All-Star Game events, venues, players, or the community at this time,” it said on Twitter on Sunday.

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A spokeswoman for Denver’s Office of Emergency Management also said there was no indication that those arrested planned a mass shooting.

Three of the suspects — Richard Platt, 42; Gabriel Rodriguez, 48; and Ricardo Rodriguez, 44 — were charged with possession of a weapon by a previous offender, the police said. Mr. Platt and Gabriel Rodriguez, along with the woman, Kanoelehua Serikawa, 43, were also charged with possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute.

Mr. Platt and Ms. Serikawa had outstanding warrants for unspecified charges from other jurisdictions. The police said Gabriel Rodriguez and Ricardo Rodriguez did not appear to be related. The hometowns of those charged were not available.

“It’s a big deal to be able to take four individuals in custody when we’re talking about weapons and to do that safely without incident,” Chief Pazen said.

Major League Baseball did not respond to emails or phone calls on Sunday.

One of the suspects had posted on Facebook that he was going to “go out in a big way” and that he was recently divorced, The Post reported. It’s not clear which of those arrested wrote that post.

“Our team swiftly alerted the authorities in this instance,” Sage Hospitality Group, the company operating the Maven Hotel, said in a statement. “We are thankful to DPD for their quick action.”

The All-Star Game this week was originally scheduled to take place in Atlanta, but Major League Baseball decided in April to move the game to Colorado after President Biden joined the growing call to pull the game from Georgia.

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Delta Air Lines and Coca-Cola also pressured Major League Baseball to move the game after Republicans in the Georgia state legislature passed a restrictive voting law.





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