A hotel manager in Florida has been fired after a pulling a gun on college students trying to use an elevator at an off-campus housing complex, video shows.
The man, identified on social media as Don Crandall, is seen in the footage blocking the four students from Florida A&M — three of whom are black — from getting on an elevator at the Stadium Centre apartment complex in Tallahassee because they didn’t have a key to the building with them.
“Right there is my key,” Crandall told the students late Saturday. “There’s my key.”
“Sir, you bringing out your gun, what’s your purpose for that?” one student replied.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Crandall said. “Excuse me. Forgive me.”
Crandall later told the students to “find another elevator” because he wasn’t going to let them use the one he had just entered.
“Do you own the building?” one student replied. “Let me know.”
“Let me be clear: You ain’t getting in this f–king elevator,” Crandall continued. “You think I’m f–king kidding?”
The gun-wielding man, a general manager at a nearby hotel, has since been fired by Pax Hotel Group, which manages The Baymont by Wyndham of Tallahassee Central.
“Pax Hotel Group believes in bringing up and adding to the communities we are a part of,” the company said in a statement posted on Instagram. “Our team has gone ahead and took the actions that were necessary to uphold our beliefs.”
The hotel chain apologized for Crandall’s actions and said it “does not stand” by the actions of its former employee.
“One of Pax Hotel Group’s core values is to treat others the way you would like to be treated,” the statement continued.
No arrests were made in connection to the incident as of Wednesday, a police spokesman told The Post.
One of the students seen in the video, identified by Florida A&M’s student newspaper as Isaiah Thomas, said another white resident in the building tried to intervene “because the other white man was being racist” by blocking them from using the elevator to enter the building.
Asked why the group didn’t call police, Thomas said: “That would have just been another black man dead.”
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