BILLINGS - A brazen robbery inside a Billings motel last week was caught on camera.
It happened at the Rodeway Inn with the robbers coming in through a back door.
Normally 3 a.m. is a quiet hour for hotel clerks and most guests are fast asleep.
The front lobby is typically empty, but that was not the case at the Rodeway Inn last Friday morning.
“They had her at gunpoint somewhere in here,” said Carrie Rinesmith, the hotel’s general manager, on Tuesday. “They shoved the gun in her rib.”
Rinesmith says two thieves barged into the hotel. One held a gun to the employee at the front desk while another had a gun on the friend of the hotel clerk.
“They grabbed the cash register that was right here and they just jerked everything out,” Rinesmith said at the front desk.
Security video also shows the robber with a crowbar trying to get into the cash register.
“But they're failing immensely,” Rinesmith said. “They just end up taking the whole thing because they're so frustrated that they cannot get into it.”
Rinesmith was not at the hotel when it happened but received a call from the clerk when the thieves left, cash register in hand.
“She goes, 'Charlie, we just got robbed at gunpoint,'” said Rinesmith, who is also known as Charlie. “She goes, I'm scared. Can you come down? And I was like, yes. Just to hear that though, it just sends a shock to your heart.”
Video from the nearby 406 Kitchen and Taproom shows the robbers walking through the parking lot to the hotel.
“Coming around the backside of the alley is what Melissa from the 406 has on her video,” Rinesmith said. “They come out this way. They climb over there. They come this way. They stand in front of the door here and then they go around the backside.”
And after a few minutes, the robbers headed out toward the Billings Family Animal Hospital.
“They had to have taken off that way behind the animal hospital because the 406 doesn't show them coming down the alley anymore,” Rinesmith said.
A scary night that has shaken employees, especially as the suspects remain on the loose.
Rinesmith talked about when she knew everyone was safe.
“When I seen her, when I seen both of them,” Rinesmith said. “They were both standing there. They were definitely shaken up, but my heart went out to them hugely. Nobody should ever have to go through that.”
Rinesmith says the employee is back at work.
