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This article was published 13/9/2018 (741 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

An American tourist awakened by a man smashing glass, screaming threats and "running amok" in the hallway outside his Winnipeg hotel room wants to know why police didn't show up for hours, despite repeated calls.

After a "wonderful" trip to northern Manitoba to see polar bears, Warren Adelman of Scottsdale, Ariz., was staying at the Grand Winnipeg Airport Hotel before catching an early flight out Wednesday morning.

Former GoDaddy Inc. president Warren Aldeman wonders why police never showed up at an airport hotel to deal with a man acting erratically in the hallway. (Twitter)

"At about 2 a.m., we were woken up by the sound of glass smashing, and we sort of heard this whole commotion unfolding," said Adelman, the retired chief executive officer and president of GoDaddy Inc., a well-known Internet domain registrar and the world's largest web host company by market share.

Someone was banging on doors and screaming threats outside his fourth-floor hotel room, he said. Adelman called down to the front desk and was told police had been called.

With a "volatile situation" happening in the hotel hallway, Adelman said in an interview Thursday he expected officers would arrive within the hour, but they didn't.

"The noise continues in the hallway — there's smashing sounds and pounding on doors and threats, and I called the front desk again. I'm told, 'We're waiting for police.'"

Described on its website as a boutique hotel with trendy guest rooms, Grand visitors are invited to "experience a stay full of lavish furnishings and tech-forward features." Adelman said he wasn't expecting to be scared to leave his room.

"I looked out the peep hole" but couldn't see what was happening in the hall. "What is so strange is I kept hearing, 'You (expletive) firemen — I'll take you on any day.' I assume this person is intoxicated, but why is he screaming at firemen?"

Then, the commotion ended.

"I'm assuming the police have come at this point," Adelman said.

When leaving the hotel a few hours later, Adelman said he observed a lot of broken glass, likely from smashed frames of hallway art. He stopped at the front desk and spoke with a manager.

"They apologized for what was going on last night," he said. "I asked him why did it take police so long to get there, and he said, 'The police never came. The only people that came were the (Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service).' Then I understood why the guy was screaming at firemen."

Adelman said he was told two hotel guests had also called police.

"That that kind of perturbed me. There was definitely something bad going on... I don't know how the paramedics resolved it, but my hats go off to them. Obviously, they were able to defuse the volatile situation," said Adelman, 55.

"I was kind of mystified: how could the police not actually arrive? Frankly, why was it fair for paramedics to be placed in harm's way?"

He tweeted at police, asking why they didn't respond to "multiple calls for assistance with a violent offender at the Grand Hotel at (the) Winnipeg airport."

"You left a team of paramedics alone to handle a violent, destructive person running amok in the hotel," the tweet states.

The mayor's office said they have notified the Winnipeg Police Board and asked chairman David Asper to look into it.

A spokeswoman for the WFPS would only say crews responded to a call at the hotel at 1:16 a.m. Wednesday.

"During the course of this call, a patient became aggressive and WFPS crews retreated, as they are trained to do in these circumstances, and waited for Winnipeg Police Service crews to arrive."

The WPS said it didn't have a car available until 4:50 a.m., and by that time, the man had left.

"We simply did not have a car available for dispatch during that period," police said in an email.

Police said they received a call about a man passed out at the hotel at 1:39 a.m.

"After the initial call, police received four updates that the male was becoming increasingly aggressive and that WFPS would not engage the male," the email states.

Police said when officers arrived hours later, they searched the area but couldn't find the man.

Police triage calls for service based on a priority system.

"Unfortunately, higher priority calls of a more urgent nature took precedent," the email from police states. "At the time of this incident, there were 187 calls waiting for dispatch. At least two of the calls involved impending danger to life or grievous bodily harm.

In an email to the Free Press, a hotel manager said guest safety and security is "paramount."

"This was an unfortunate and extremely unusual incident for us," Danielle Gunson said. "These types of situations typically do not happen here, and if they should occur, our staff does everything they can to ensure the safety and security of our guests."

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca