Police Beat

Advertiser Staff

Armed robbers hit Waikiki hotel

Police are looking for three men and a woman who robbed three women at gunpoint last night in their Waikiki hotel room.

The robbery victims, all 22 years old, told police the suspects forced their way into the women's hotel room about 8:45 p.m., searched the room and took various items.

Police would not identify the hotel where the robbery took place.

No one was injured during the incident.

Three suspected of stealing gecko

Three men were arrested on suspicion of second-degree theft early yesterday morning after they were caught carrying a large plaster gecko away from the Pacific Beach Hotel.

A hotel employee saw the men, ages 21 and 22, carrying the sculpture away from the hotel grounds and notified hotel security workers, who detained one of the men.

Police were called and found the other two men nearby. All three men were taken into police custody.

Police capture OCCC escapee

An inmate who escaped about 8:35 a.m. yesterday from the O'ahu Community Correctional Center was captured this morning, police said.

Details of Michael Ventura's capture were not immediately available.

Ventura, 25, a minimum security inmate, scaled a chain-link fence topped with coils of razor wire, prison officials said. Ventura's pants were found hanging from the top of the fence near Annex 1, near the side of the facility that borders the Foremost Dairy site.

Ventura was sentenced on Dec. 14 to up to 90 days in jail for third-degree assault and was scheduled to be released on Jan. 26.

If convicted of escape, he could face a five-year prison term.