Women Leaves Children in Hotel Pool Unattended. Refuses to Gives Room Number.

[mi*vida*loca]

She had to have a way to get into her car. So did she have her purse? A wallet?

I must have missed something anyway. I thought they asked her to give her name and room number and she refused.

you only needs keys to get into your car. I don’t take my purse. Maybe she had a Pool bag, her pocket ?

 

[okeydokey]

If she had her room key, that should have been the end of it. The employee could have told her she needed to be in the pool area if her kids were swimming. She didn't need to say the woman didn't belong there and call the police.

 

[sam_gordon]

The SOP likely goes something like this:

1. If anything seems out of the ordinary, ask for proof of stay.

So wouldn't either the employee or Hampton say "It's part of our procedures that if anything is out of the ordinary, we ask for proof of stay"? Sorry, not buying it.

50' is the furthest she could have been from the pool in that lot based on google maps.

Also not buying it. You have no idea where her car was parked. Also, it looks like there's a fence around the pool. So if there was an emergency, she would have had to run to wherever the gate is and get in that way. She could have been parked 100' away and still been able to see the pool. Regardless, this just confuses the issue. The question is whether it is logical to ask for proof of occupancy. If that is SOP, Hampton should have been able to provide that in a document.

 

[Dan Murphy]

you only needs keys to get into your car.

Many cars today can be opened with your cell phone.

 

[mmouse37]

The article that I saw said there were only a couple of other families at the pool when this happened. All that the employee had to do was ask the other 2 families for the same info and this whole mess could have been avoided.

If the other families had parents and kids together why would they need to be asked for their room number. The reason for being asked was because the kids were unattended at the pool.

MJ

 

[jaybirdsmommy]

[/QUOTE]

If the other families had parents and kids together why would they need to be asked for their room number. The reason for being asked was because the kids were unattended at the pool.

MJ

So that it wouldn't appear they were targeting her because of her race. If everyone gets asked there is no appearance of discrimination.

 

[J'aime Paris]

I was a lifeguard at the local YMCA during high school, and in Wis. Dells at a waterpark during 2 summers of college. As lead guard on duty, I was once called to help resuscitate a near drowning victim while waiting for paramedics.
Nobody should ever have to see a child like that......

Guest, non-guest at the hotel, doesn't matter.
This mom was too far away from her children, and that was irresponsible and dangerous! Period!

 

[Brett Wyman]

It's entirely possible that she was being irresponsible AND was persecuted unjustly by the police. It doesn't have to be one or the other.

 

[Pink Partridge]

It's entirely possible that she was being irresponsible AND was persecuted unjustly by the police. It doesn't have to be one or the other.

I can appreciate this viewpoint. Thank you for making me reflect.

 

[jaybirdsmommy]

It's entirely possible that she was being irresponsible AND was persecuted unjustly by the police. It doesn't have to be one or the other.

I agree with you, but the police were just doing their jobs. Let's not blame them. They were dispatched to a call about a woman trespassing and refusing to leave a hotel. She refused to provide them with info to prove she was staying there as well. They ran her plates, got her name and had the clerk verify she was a guest. I think of the 3 parties involved, the police handled the situation in the most appropriate matter.

 

[Sabeking]

Here's the actual location...
View attachment 505785

She was within 50 feet of her kids at the furthest. She had direct line of sight. It's in broad daylight. If she had actually done anything wrong, she would have been cited.

The hotel employee did not call the cops and tell them that a woman was neglecting her kids. The hotel called the police to report a trespasser.

If you think it's unfair of this woman to suspect racism singled her family among all the people who had swam in that pool that day for suspicion of trespassing, I don't think you've spent much time in NC.

If you think it's fine that a business' first reaction to seeing a black person on their property being to call the police, I think you've been living under a mushroom.

Gee, tell us how you really feel about N.C.

 

[MrsPete]

First and foremost, the mom should've been AT THE POOL with her kids. Drowning can happen fast, and it's not a big splashy thing -- drowning tends to be quiet; kids just sort of "slip under". People can literally drown with other people an arm's reach away, unaware of what's going on. If the mom was in her car, she couldn't possibly have see that a kid was in trouble. If mom needed to go to the rest room or to the car, she should've either taken the kids with her or had them sit out for a few minutes.

Absolutely the employee could've approached the situation better /could've worded things better -- but the mom started it by being neglectful, and then she escalated it by failing to simply answer the "What room?" question. So many people today don't seem to realize you can avoid lots of trouble simply by being cooperative!

I'm white, and I've been asked for proof that I'm a hotel guest. More than once -- never a problem. Quick question, done in less than a minute, everyone moves on. If she'd just said, "The name is Jones. We're in Room 101. Here's my key." the hotel employee could've verified it, and it would've been done.

 

[MillauFr]

This hotel doesn't stand a good chance of making it in the 2021 edition of the Green Book

 

[mrodgers]

1. A child is not unsupervised when their parent is a stones throw from them, literally watching them.
2. The woman showed the hotel her ID when she checked in and received her key, which she showed to the hotel employee.
3. Past, present and future, lot's of horrible practices get labeled "normal".
4. No part of the complaint mentioned pool rules.

There's no cause to suspect that a woman holding a working room key is trespassing. The hotel's written policy is that ID is needed at check in. There's no policy stating that guests must show ID to staff whenever asked. You can't suspect someone of a crime (in the legal sense) based on them refusing to do something they aren't legally obligated to do. And you can't trespass a renter unless they have violated the terms of their rental agreement.

A business that calls the police on customers who haven't broken the law doesn't deserve customers.

Sitting in your car playing on your phone outside of what I assume to be a gated fenced in swimming pool is NOT supervising your children.

 

[china mom]

So, one night, while on patrol, I came across a group of about ten or so males walking along the front of a shopping center. The center had been closed since 9 PM and this was sometime after midnight. There has been burglaries there in the recent past in the form of front window smashes.

I stopped the group to ask them what they were doing there and no one spoke English. Back up arrived and we spent a ridiculous amount of time with the subjects due to the language barrier. We conducted a pat down search for weapons for our safety under our authority under Terry v Ohio. We found a knife and held it for the duration of the interview.

When one of the subjects finally remembered that he spoke English, we were able to determine that the group were restaurant workers who had just gotten off work at point A and were walking home to point B and the shopping center was a shortcut. We returned the knife, wished then well and sent them on their way.

I did not stop them due to their race/ethnicity as I did not realize what their race was until I made my approach.

I tell this story to show that sometimes something looks like a duck but can be something else and all it takes is simple cooperation - not jumping to conclusions that the interaction is about race.

The employee in this case was doing a routine sweep of the pool as she was directed to do by her supervisor. Frankly, although there was a reasonable explanation as to why the children were in the pool while the woman was in her car, I think that on the surface, this looked exactly like a pool trespass situation. If the woman in question had chosen to just answer the employee's question rather than assuming it was about race and escalating the situation, this never would have gone past a pleasant exchange. She drug it out and made herself look very suspicious.

And showing a key is total BS. I bet I have at least two keys just like that in my house right now. The hotel chain has stated that they use that exact key at all of their hotels. The employee didn't ask her if she had a plastic card, she asked which room the guest was staying in.

 

[Starwarsfan2]

All hotels are like this. We should defund them.

 

[sam_gordon]

Frankly, although there was a reasonable explanation as to why the children were in the pool while the woman was in her car, I think that on the surface, this looked exactly like a pool trespass situation.

What exactly does a pool trespass situation look like? As opposed to a normal guest using the pool?

 

[china mom]

What exactly does a pool trespass situation look like? As opposed to a normal guest using the pool?

Typically, when I am staying at a hotel and my kids are using the pool, and I have something to do that cannot be taken care of poolside, I go back to my room to handle it. No, I am not required to, but I think that is pretty typical guest behavior (my opinion only). OTOH, someone who uses pools that they have no business at, would have to go to their car to things like charge their phone, change clothes etc.

She had a perfectly logical and acceptable explanation for her choice to go to her car but she got indignant instead of just saying "I'm in room #xxx". So, although she had a right to do everything she did, she was the one who escalated the entire situation.

And she dug in deep upon the arrival of the police officers instead of just providing them with the requested information.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Most hotels ask you to register your license plate number for parking enforcement. I assume the hotel had the mom's plate number on file. So all the employee had to do was look up the number to see if the car was registered at the hotel. This is what they would do if they suspected a car in their lot didn't belong to a registered guest.

My husband frequently travels for business and gets rental cars. They haven't asked for license plate numbers as a norm every now and then but no not a norm. I do think some hotels do but as this is a Hampton Inn and having stayed at Hamptons a lot (and other Hilton branded hotels) they don't really ask for your license plate number (at least the ones I have) in decent enough areas (don't know this Hampton's area though). I don't know if this location does but I sorta feel like that would have come out already that the practice is to ask for the license plate and have it contained within the hotel's reservation though I could be totally wrong on that.

On the other hand if an employee was taking down the license plate information to look it up if they asked for that I don't think that would have changed the interaction at all. The individual in question felt her race was being used as the reason for such questioning. I agree it would be an easy way just not sure if that would have eased the tension or if really the issue itself was being questioned in the first place. With the individual refusing to give room number and show ID while understandable I'm not sure using her car, assuming the hotel did ask for such information, would have absolved the situation; purely my opinion.

Now the car's registration WAS used by the police to verify the woman's identity.

 

[sam_gordon]

Don't most hotels lock their pools and you need to use a key to get in? Simply tell the woman she needs to either be in the pool area or her kids need to leave the pool area. If she uses a keycard to get into the pool, you know it's valid. If the kids leave the pool area, does the family go into the hotel (guest) or to the car and leave (trespassing)?