Suspect killed in shoot-out during Chesco hotel robbery

A 911 call yesterday from a Chester County hotel led to a shoot-out with police that left one robbery suspect dead and another in custody, authorities said.

First Assistant District Attorney Patrick Carmody said West Goshen Township police responded at 4:28 a.m. to a cell-phone call that was "basically broadcasting a robbery in progress" with no one on the line. Officers traced the call to the Microtel Inn & Suites hotel on Willowbrook Lane, near Route 202, he said.

When officers arrived at the hotel, shots were fired from the front-desk area, Carmody said. Police returned fire, forcing two hooded, gloved, armed suspects to break through a ground-floor window and into a parking lot outside, Carmody said.

From there, one of the pair, Dashan White, 24, of Coatesville, fired a handgun at police, and a West Goshen officer shot back, mortally wounding him, Carmody said.

The other suspect, a Coatesville juvenile, Calvin Haines Jr., was apprehended in the parking lot with $600 taken from the hotel and will be charged as an adult with robbery, aggravated assault and related offenses, Carmody said.

Carmody said the night clerk had noticed suspicious activity on a surveillance camera and "just had time to push the send button" on his phone when the suspects burst in. The clerk, who was tied up and pistol-whipped, was lying on the floor when the shots began, Carmody said.

"It's very fortunate that no one else was killed," Carmody said.

He said Chester County detectives were conducting an investigation. As of yesterday, they had determined that only one officer had fired his weapon.

"Obviously, the investigation will continue, but it appears that the use of deadly force was justified," Carmody said.

According to court records, White was sentenced in March 2004 to two to six years in state prison for robbery.