Skip to main content

Angry guest drives his truck through hotel lobby, narrowly missing front desk staff


After having a bad experience at a hotel, some people will fill out a comment card, pressing extra hard with the ball point pen and using AS MANY CAPITAL LETTERS as possible. Others would rather shout at members of the staff using the most obscene verb conjugations they can think of. And then there's John Edward Parsley. The 62-year-old Texas man had a disagreement with the front desk clerks at the Alva (Okla.) Comfort Inn & Suites and responded by allegedly driving his pickup truck through the lobby, and ramming the vehicle into the desk where the women stood.

[embed]

[/embed]

According to a police report obtained by the Enid News, Parsley was angry because his credit card had been declined twice and he had to pay cash for the rooms. Hotel manager Christian Kingson told the officers that Parsley became "rude and vulgar" toward the staff members and demanded a refund for his stay. "Parsley stated it wasn’t his first bad experience with a hotel manager who was also Indian," the report said. Christian told CNN:

"He was still upset and called police while he was threatening to drive his truck through the lobby. Dispatch told him to step outside, and then he positioned his truck facing the lobby, and I called police back telling them this."

The Alva Police Department responded to Christian's phone calls and Officer Wade Suffon was talking to Parsley, trying to diffuse the situation, when Parsley took matters — and his steering wheel — into his own hands. According to Suffon's report:

"Parsley rolled his window down and looked at me as I was speaking to him trying to explain to him I was going to go inside to speak with the manager. I observed Parsley reach up and place his vehicle in drive and accelerate rapidly, crashing into the hotel front entrance and into the lobby."

Parsley can be seen in the video, putting his hands in the air and walking outside. He reportedly told officers that the hotel staff "thought he was bluffing," and he intended to prove that he wasn't.

Parsley was immediately arrested and is facing two felony counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and one count of malicious injury to property over $1,000. He is currently being held in the Wood County Jail, with bond set at $1 million. Parsley's now-former employer, SandRidge Energy, says that he is no longer affiliated with the company.

Christian told the Enid News:

"We are No. 1 on TripAdvisor, and we don’t have angry guests. We make sure our guests are happy, but, this person, he was difficult to talk to and wouldn’t listen. He purposely drove through to kill front desk staff."

The Alva Comfort Inn & Suites only has one one-star review on TripAdvisor, from a guest who was angry that the pool was closed. The manager apologized.