A Southwest Airlines flight attendant was arrested last Friday on suspicion of attacking hotel guests and firefighters with a toilet plunger in a bizarre rampage at a hotel used by the airline in Des Moines, Iowa.
Trevyn Hill, 21, of Phoenix, was arrested in the early hours of January 28 and has been charged with disorderly conduct, criminal mischief and assault while displaying a dangerous weapon. Hill has denied the charges, according to recently filed court papers.
The Des Moines Police Department was called to Southwest Air’s layover hotel in downtown Des Moines at around 2 am last weekend to reports of a suspicious person armed with a dangerous weapon.
According to the official police report, security officers at the hotel said they were dealing with a shirtless suspect who had been assaulting other hotel guests with a toilet plunger.
The same suspect, who was later identified as Hill, had also been roaming the hotel hallways tripping fire alarms and is suspected of having partially flooded the hotel by breaking a sprinkler system nozzle in one of the maintenance rooms, it is alleged.
The hotel has estimated the costs of repairs could set it back as much as $10,000.
Responding police officers found Hill in a stairwell on the 20th floor of the hotel, being physically restrained by firefighters who alleged they had been attacked by Hill.
A number of guests reported that Hill had been “chasing people” around the hotel with the toilet plunger. One victim said she had been evacuating the hotel via the stairwell after the fire alarm went off, when she came across Hill on the 18th floor.
Hill is alleged to have chased after the victim while holding the plunger and shouting: “I’m going to f**king get you”. The victim managed to escape uninjured, according to the police report.
Several other witnesses said Hill had physically hit them with the plunger, while others claimed Hill and stripped his jeans off and defecated on the hallway floor. Officers found what appeared to be human excrement on the 19th-floor stairwell floor and up the walls.
Hill was taken into custody without incident and released on bail the following day. He pleaded not guilty to a charge of disorderly conduct during a court hearing on Thursday. The case will be heard at a later date before a jury.
Hill’s Facebook profile still shows a photo of him in a Southwest Airlines flight attendant uniform. Southwest Airlines did not respond to several requests for comment.
