ROCHESTER, Minn. – Police raided a budget hotel and arrested seven people and seized fentanyl and methamphetamine – and firearms. When police encountered resistance, they used a pepper bell. The raid, about 4 p.m. focused on five rooms at Motel 6 northwest of downtown just off U.S. Highway 52. Police had what they call “the element of surprise.”
Motel 6. $56 a night at 2107 Frontage Road North.
Witness accounts
Tarica Jones told KTTC: “They told everybody to move out the way and get on the ground. And the next thing I heard is them barging into the doors.”
Charles Hadler: ”They took everybody out and searched the rooms, ripped everything apart. They searched my car and took everything out of my car.” Hadler himself was detained but later released. “I was just in the office filling up a lunch box with some ice so I could cool my drinks off,” he told a KTTC reporter. “And I turn around and there’s three cops and a sheriff trying to put me in cuffs. I barely knew what was happening at the moment.”