Crime Scene NYC Hotel to Install Panic Buttons

The New York City hotel where Mahmoud Abdel-Salam Omar allegedly assualted a maid has decided to equip its housekeeping employees with panic buttons in the event of future threats.

The Wall Street Journal reported today that The Pierre Hotel on Manhattan's Upper East Side plans to provide room attendants with panic buttons they can activate in the event of inappropriate or aggressive behavior on the part of hotel guests. The decision is the result of a meeting between hotel representatives and employee union officials.

Let everybody in the world traveling to New York know that when they stay in a hotel room, the person cleaning that room is armed with a button that they can immediately press if you're stupid enough to get inappropriate, Peter Ward, president of the New York Hotel & Motel Trades Council, told the Wall Street Journal. Reports indicate that the Sofitel Hotel - where Dominique Strauss-Kahn allegedly assaulted a chambermaid - has also agreed to install panic buttons, and Ward told the paper he was working on legislation to make the alarms mandatory at all New York City hotels.

Mahmoud Abdel Salam Omar, the board chairman of an Egyptian salt-production company, was arraigned Tuesday night in Manhattan Criminal Court on two counts of sexual abuse and one count of forcible touching. The alleged attack took place on Sunday night at the Pierre Hotel, but on the direction of the staff supervisor working that evening, it was not reported until Monday. The staff supervisor has since been suspended while the delay in reporting the incident is investigated.

On May 14, former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn is accused of having sexually assaulted a chambermaid in his luxury suite at the Sofitel Hotel in New York City. He is currently under house arrest in Tribeca.

[Source: Wall Street Journal]