Man arrested at hotel to get weapons back

Gulf War veteran charged in New Year’s Eve incident at Hyatt Regency to get guns back

A grand jury has cleared a man who was arrested after Houston police found multiple guns inside his room at the Hyatt Regency on New Year’s Eve, and he will get his weapons returned.

New Year’s Eve 2018 at the 30story Hyatt Regency was set to be a massive party, complete with a balloon drop and Champagne toasts at one of downtown Houston’s most unique high-rise hotels.

But less than 24 hours before the festivities for hundreds of expected revelers, 49-year-old Russell Lawrence Ziemba, who reeked of alcohol and slurred his speech after drinking at the hotel bar, was told he he had to leave the hotel. Police showed up around 1:30 a.m. and escorted him to his room to retrieve his belongings, and spotted several shotgun shells and a magazine for an assault rifle on a desk — they eventually found a shotgun, a semi-automatic handgun and a military-style assault rifle.

That troubling combination of factors led prosecutors to petition a Harris County magistrate judge to hold Ziemba without bail, fearing he was planning a repeat of the earlier October massacre of 58 people in Las Vegas. In that mass shooting, a retired IRS agent opened fire from a high-rise hotel window on hundreds of fans attending a nearby music festival before killing himself.

This week Ziemba, a Gulf War veteran awarded a Bronze Star, was cleared of felony charges after a grand jury saw the surveillance video and determined there was not enough evidence to continue prosecuting him.

So on Wednesday, state District Judge Brad Hart ordered police to return Ziemba’s 12gauge shotgun, a semi-automatic Glock .380 pistol and his AR-15 assault-style rifle, confirmed Ziemba’s defense attorney, Danny Easterling.

“The surveillance video from the Hyatt Regency showed insufficient evidence that Mr. Ziemba kicked the officer when he was being arrested for trespassing,” Easterling said. “Everybody looked at it, homicide looked at it, and there was zero evidence of bad intent. He was just having a good time in a hotel, drinking.”

Easterling also secured the release of two magazines and 54 bullets that were confiscated.

At the time of his arrest, the situation apparently escalated when Ziemba got back downstairs and allegedly refused to leave the hotel. In the lobby, authorities would later say, he refused to put his hands behind his back and struggled with police.

Police claimed he kicked one of the officers who finally subdued him, commotion recorded by surveillance cameras in the lobby.

Because police saw he had weapons in a room that commanded a vantage point from the 28th floor, they investigated further. A background check found he had twice been convicted of driving while intoxicated, and was out on bond for a weapons charge brought a month earlier. Then police found what prosecutors called “cryptic notes” scattered across his hotel room, including one that simply said “f*** it.”

“Local and federal investigators are investigating defendant to determine if firearms & ammo possessed in hotel room with a high vantage point for purpose of inflicting casualties,” prosecutors wrote in court documents the day Ziemba was arrested.

In the end, it is a Texas-style resolution to a case that began with police sounding the alarm about an apparently drunk and belligerent Gulf War veteran with an arsenal of guns in his hotel room. It concluded with authorities deciding it was merely a hotel guest who brought his three guns to his room, worried they might be stolen from his truck, and then had too much to drink.

“He legally owned the guns and didn’t like keeping them in his truck. There was no intent to do anything with the guns,” Easterling said. “He’s just a good ol’ guy who was drinking a lot because he has PTSD. Typical story of a veteran who is depressed and out of a job and starts drinking.”

Easterling said Ziemba, a resident of Tomball, is now in drug and alcohol treatment with the Veterans Administration. He still faces misdemeanor charges of trespass, and notes in the court file indicate that case would be resolved after the grand jury action.

The weapons case is also still pending, and court records show he is accused of driving with a gun in plain sight in his vehicle without it being in a holster, a misdemeanor.

The Harris County District Attorney’s Office confirmed the grand jury action and the pending case, but declined to comment on the events surrounding Ziemba’s New Year’s Eve arrest.

Prosecutors with the district attorney’s office first asked that he be held without bail, then said $500,000 would be adequate.

The magistrate judge set bail at $105,000, and judge Hart lowered it to $20,000, which he was able to raise.

As part of his release conditions, he was barred from drinking alcohol or possessing firearms. He was also put under house arrest and required to wear an ankle monitor.

“He legally owned the guns and didn’t like keeping them in his truck. There was no intent to do anything with the guns. He’s just a good ol’ guy who was drinking a lot because he has PTSD.” Danny Easterling, defense attorney