An Indian-origin motel manager was shot dead at point-blank range in Pittsburgh, United States, last week. Fifty-one-year-old Rakesh Ehagaban, who managed the Pittsburgh Motel in Robinson Township, stepped outside to check on a disturbance when a man shot him in the head, according to a criminal complaint published in local media.
The incident happened on Friday. Police said the suspect, Stanley Eugene West, 37, shot Ehagaban after he approached the former while attempting to intervene in an alleged dispute outside the motel.
Police said the motel’s surveillance cameras captured the shooting. Footage showed that the motel manager stepped out after hearing the commotion. He asked a man holding a gun, “Are you alright, bud?”
The suspect started walking toward Ehagaban. As he got within a few feet of the motel manager, raised his firearm and shot him in the head, Trib Live, a local publication, reported, citing the police complaint.
Ehagaban died on the spot.
According to police, West also shot a female companion outside the motel and later exchanged gunfire with police who tracked him to the East Hills of Pittsburgh after he left the motel.
West was injured in a gunfight with police and taken to a hospital in critical condition. He has been charged with criminal homicide, attempted homicide and recklessly endangering another person.
The woman, the other victim in the firing incident, was also hospitalised in critical condition. A police detective was also injured in the firing incident and has been admitted to a hospital.
Police said that the suspect had been staying at the Pittsburgh Motel, where the woman had been a guest for the past two weeks. She was staying there with a child. On Friday, the woman was attempting to drive away from the motel in her black sedan when West approached the driver’s side door and shot at the vehicle, shattering the driver’s door window, police said.
A bullet hit the woman on the neck. The child, who was sitting in the back seat, was unharmed. The shooting drew Ehagaban outside the motel, where he confronted the gunman, who shot him dead.
The criminal complaint said that there was a moving van parked in the lot next to the black sedan, and “after shooting Ehagaban, the actor (West) nonchalantly walks to the van and drives away.”
Meanwhile, the injured woman managed to drive to an automobile service centre, where police found her. She was admitted to a hospital in critical condition.
Police later tracked the West’s van using licence plate reading cameras. When they approached West, he got out of the van and started shooting.
“The detectives returned fire,” Allegheny County Police Superintendent Christopher Kearns said Friday. Both West and a Pittsburgh detective were shot in the exchange of gunfire.