"This was a very dangerous situation. The hotel had guests, these men were armed, both of them were ready to do business," said Chester County first assistant district attorney Patrick Carmody.
Police say the two robbers ambushed the night desk clerk at the Microtel around four this morning.
The clerk tried to set off a silent alarm but it didn't work.
Police sources and witnesses say the clerk managed to dial 9-1-1 on his cell phone and then threw it on the floor.
Police followed the signal from the open line and confronted the robbers who had bound and beaten the clerk.
Police say the robbers opened fire on the first responding officer and he fired back before running out the front door to call for back up.
As he ran out, Dashan White came crashing through an office window.
The two exchanged more gunfire.
White was hit and died on the sidewalk in front of the hotel.
Haines was nabbed by other officers arriving on the scene.
It was a rude awakening for hotel guests who were roused from their sleep.
They were banging on everyone's door, woke everybody up. Everybody had to keep their doors open, ID'ed everybody. It scared me a little bit," said Jeff Irons of West Chester, Pa.
Kevin Mobley of North Carolina is a long-term guest of the hotel.
He talked to the clerk this morning.
"He's alright. He said he got hit in the back of the head with a gun and they tied him up around the ankles and they tied him up around his hands, and they had him in the office and they were trying to get the safe out, that's what he said. The safe was bolted to the ground," he said.
Police recovered the weapons involved and a lot of other forensic evidence. Sources tell us they are looking into the possibility that the two suspects involved in this shootout may also be responsible for a rash of violent home invasions in Coatesville, that included a double murder just last month.
