Hotel guest allegedly shot door after locking himself out of room

A tourist from West Virginia spent part of his vacation a Florida in jail after deputies say he used a handgun to shoot the lock on his hotel room door when he locked himself out of the room.



Charles William Richardson, 35, of Dunbar, was arrested on Thursday morning and charged with two felony counts of shooting a deadly missile within an occupied building. Deputies responded to reports of a man shooting a firearm at the Beachcomber Hotel on St. Pete Beach at 7:58am on Thursday.

According to deputies, when they arrived at the hotel, they found Richardson sitting in the lobby unarmed. Deputies determined that Richardson, who was a guest at the hotel, used a handgun to shoot the lock on his hotel room door because he had locked himself out of his room.



Richardson then proceeded to shoot a window at the hotel for no apparent reason. No one was injured at the hotel as a result of the shooting. Deputies say they recovered the handgun near Richardson’s hotel room. Richardson was arrested and transported to the Pinellas County Jail.