From Chelsea Phua:
Authorities in three Northern California counties, including Sacramento and El Dorado, on Friday arrested several people they say hit a man and kidnapped a woman at Red Hawk Casino.
Three of those arrested -- Jesse Madrigal (top left photo), Steven Santiago (center photo) and Ricky Mora (right photo) -- are from Sacramento County, according to a news release by the El Dorado County Sheriff's Office. El Dorado sheriff's spokesman Lt. Bryan Golmitz said the men were arrested on suspicion of false imprisonment and assault with a deadly weapon.
Two others, Stephen Lizotte and Ernie Lizotte, are from Riverbank in Stanislaus County. It was not specified what they were charged with.
Golmitz said he was informed later that two more people connected to the incidents were arrested, but said he did not have their identities as of Friday evening.
Authorities said the men belonged to a large group of men and women who confronted two men and a woman at the casino, asking them if they belonged to a gang.
The two men who were confronted denied any gang affiliation and investigators said they did not have gang ties. One of the men from the larger group allegedly also made threats to sexually assault the woman in the smaller group, which caused her to become angry and attack that man. One of the men from the smaller group tried to break up the fight, and was punched and hit with a beer bottle, authorities said.
Red Hawk Casino security eventually separated the groups.
Some members of the larger group later went inside an elevator, where they confronted a woman who had not been involved in the first incident. They told her that she was going to get them out of the casino with her vehicle and they would let her go once they were on the highway, authorities said.
The group allegedly forced her to through the casino floors and to the garage, where she escaped and contacted casino security guards, then sheriff's deputies.
El Dorado County sheriff's detectives were able to identify six of the men from surveillance video.
SWAT members from El Dorado County sheriff, Folsom Police, Sacramento County Sheriff and Stanislaus County sheriff departments on Friday served search warrants at four locations. They seized several guns, gang-related items, ecstasy, marijuana and a large amount of money during the search.
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