Police Try To Reassure Salvadoran Students

Moscow Police Department officials have met with a group of 18 visiting Salvadorans studying at the University of Idaho to explain why three of them were detained after a downtown robbery last week.

Through an interpreter, detectives Jim Kouril and Neil Odenborg said Thursday that police investigating the Dec. 8 armed robbery at the Nobby Inn were searching for an Hispanic suspect whose height and clothing were described as similar to the Salvadorans’.

The students were leaving the Moscow Hotel about 30 minutes after the robbery and were speaking Spanish when two officers stopped, searched and questioned them for about 15 minutes.

Project coordinator and University of Idaho professor Samuel Ham said the Salvadorans were impressed and grateful the police had come to discuss the situation.