Guest describes experience at San Diego hotel after deadly shooting

(FOX5/KUSI) — San Diego Police investigators have been on the scene of a deadly shooting in the Hotel Circle area of Mission Valley on Monday evening.

Police said the suspect shot two people, with one person dying in a hallway at the hotel and the other found shot outside the lobby.

A FOX5/KUSI team watched as police gave a man commands to walk backward with his hands up before being arrested. Tactical vehicles and a SWAT team were on site.

A guest staying at the hotel said they could not get their belongings out of the hotel or stay at the hotel on Monday night, and said the hotel put them up in a nearby hotel.

Duvone Mitchell said he returned to the hotel around 11 p.m. Monday night and found his hotel room behind the crime scene tape.

“We came back around 11 o’clock and they told us we had to stay right here on the street and we waited out, and then they told us for our safety to leave the hotel and go somewhere else and they accommodated us, but it was just cops all over the place,” Mitchell said. “We couldn’t get nothing out last night.”

Mitchell said Tuesday is his birthday and he had planned to drive to Los Angeles to spend the day there before flying home to Boston on Wednesday, but he wasn’t able to get back to his hotel room until Tuesday morning.

“If I wasn’t already in bed I would have at least come downstairs to see what all the commotion was about, but you know its probably a good thing I didn’t because when you got gunshots, bullets don’t have eyes,” Nathan Wilson said, adding that he heard the helicopter and sirens as he was in bed, right next to the hotel. “I don’t care where we go, where we work because something like this can spring up anytime. ”

Police have not confirmed what led up to the shooting, the identities of the victims or suspect, or the relationship.

Our Fox 5/KUSI crews saw one person wearing what appeared to be disposable hospital scrubs, with a wrap around their arm and carrying their belongings in a bag get dropped off by a taxi at the Handlery Hotel Tuesday afternoon, and then talking with investigators on the scene.

Police are asking anyone with information to come forward.

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