GREAT FALLS — On February 9, 2023, Great Falls Police Department received a call from the Great Falls Inn that there was a disturbance. An officer responded and arrived at a vocal altercation between a family of guests and hotel staff. The officer on call was a mediator of the situation, allowing time to de-escalate. The matter was then dismissed.
Three to four hours earlier is when the situation began.
Captain Doug Otto, of the GFPD Support Services Bureau, shared that officers were not on the scene when the situation began.
Jaylynn Mitchell, a guest of the hotel, along with other members of her family were staying there. Purchasing three total rooms and requesting handicap accommodations for her uncle who is a paraplegic. Mitchell shared that she and her family requested a late check out for 12 pm after the designated 11 am check out time.
Captain Doug Otto says it was all a misunderstanding.
“There were three rooms that were occupied. The family had been using three rooms. Somebody called in to extend a late checkout, and that was one room miscommunication, that they wanted all three rooms that way.”
That’s the same story from the guest, Jaylynn Mitchell of the Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation.
“They (her family) requested a late checkout and the lady or the manager, whoever they told, didn't relay that message back to the housekeeper. The housekeeper went to go knock on their door and started becoming belligerent with them.”
Following the miscommunication, the family made accommodations for the handicapped relative, at around 11:30 am, when Mitchell says they received a knock on the door.
Kathryn Carrette is the housekeeper who hoped to clean the hotel room.
From that point on – an altercation broke out between an unknown number of family members and two staff members in the lobby.
Amidst the altercation, Mitchell pulled out her cell phone to record outbursts delivered by housekeeper Kathryn Carrette, also in the video, General Manager Kelli LaFountain.
“I’m gonna put this on TikTok. I’m gonna put this on TikTok.” Charrette shouted in what Mitchell believes is a mockery of an Indigenous reservation accent.
“See how she’s mocking our accent,” responded Mitchell.
“Really? I was just talking,” explained Charrette.
Mitchell along with another unknown voice behind the camera raised their voices at Charrette and now focused on LaFountain who motioned to the telephone to call the police. She told police they had “very disruptive guests in the lobby”.
In the middle of the phone call, Charrette is seen and heard shouting at a person down the hall, “He was supposed to be out at 11! That’s the whole point. I don’t care if he’s a quadriplegic.”
The guests were also heard shouting profanities towards the actions of the two staff members.
There is one other person briefly seen in the video behind the desk. At this point in time, it is unclear who that person is.
The altercation continued as the guests filming made their way out the front doors of the Great Falls Inn.
Charrette is seen in the video, pointing a middle finger at the camera, and laughing in an off-tone. General Manager LaFountain is seen on the phone with law enforcement.
Following the altercation, Jaylynn Mitchell posted the video on TikTok where it was labeled with this caption:
I wonder why this “establishment” is a two star hotel!! These women blatantly disrespected our whole family this morning! My uncle is a paraplegic and THEY STATED HE CAN CHECK OUT AT NOON! They shouldn’t go back on their word! Mind you the first lady who was yelling around was on the maid! It takes atleast 3 of us to get our uncle ready and out of bed and into the care we were all their at 11:30am and this is what we pulled up too was this women yelling at my two uncles saying they needed to out by 11! I hope our tribe doesn’t support this awful place anymore!
The TikTok post gained attraction from viewers across the nation and the globe, racking up more than 712,000 views, almost 60,000 likes, and more than 700 shares.
Mitchell says, “The way she was mocking our accent. That's blatant racism. It was right in our face.”
The Great Falls Inn gave MTN News the following statement:
We are fair, open-minded, and honest. We treat each guest with dignity and respect. This is a highly unfortunate incident that occurred. Because the safety of our guests is paramount. We became concerned about the level of disruption. The police were called, and the matter has been taken care of.
Following the incident, Captain Otto explained that the family never filed a complaint with the police, only the hotel staff filed a complaint. With that, the Great Falls Police Department is still out of its jurisdiction to issue any charges on either party.
The guests claim that this is blatant “racism.” Otto told MTN that for this to be identified as any form of bias, discrimination, or racism – that matter needs to be handled in civil court.
The aftermath of the viral TikTok video has led some on social media to respond to the actions of the hotel staff.
When we visited the hotel staff on Saturday, February 11, 2023, the front desk attendant on staff told us that in her shift, she wrote down nearly 30 threats varying from harm, to calling the staff racist. The woman kept a log of the phone numbers and times that the calls were received. MTN did not receive a copy of the list of phone numbers, but it was evident across the counter that a list had been made.
We asked Captain Otto what GFPD can do in this instance, and he shared that an officer is currently working on a list of numbers that were issued to the police from hotel management. The steps for the department to act are far beyond its capacity, as search warrants for other counties and states pose a challenge. He also shared that he’s seen phone numbers from Canada that would be nearly impossible to track down for the small department.
“We have to look for specific criteria for probable cause for a charge in Montana code. Montana law lists very specific things we have to meet, per the judges, per the courts, and per with the way the law is written. Everything we’re looking at does not fit under privacy and communications. We’ve worked diligently with our city court judge because it is a misdemeanor… It doesn’t fit any statute that we’re seeing at this point in time.”
Captain Otto says that for now, this matter is between the family involved and the administrative staff from the hotel.
“I just want an apology to my uncle and to my family as a whole, like we didn't deserve to be treated that way by the establishment that we paid money for,” stated Mitchell.
“We have to remember freedom of speech. People have the right to make comments and speak and feel how they feel,” said Otto, adding, “…and if we continue to have other problems and it precipitates to something more, we'll handle that as it comes out as but we're asking people to stop.”
We tried to contact Carrette, the woman in the video, for comment. She declined to answer.
MTN also met with General Manager Kelli LaFountain on Saturday when she issued the statement. She also declined to comment but said that the Great Falls Inn Facebook page has been deactivated.
The hotel has also taken steps to protect its employees from any outside threats.
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