MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Prosecutors charged four Milwaukee hotel employees Tuesday with being a party to felony murder in connection with D’Vontaye Mitchell’s death.
Mitchell was Black. The incident has drawn comparisons to the murder of George Floyd, a Black man who died in 2020 after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee into his neck for about nine minutes. Floyd’s death sparked a national reckoning on race relations marked by multiple protests around the country.
Charged were hotel security guard Todd Erickson; front desk worker Devin Johnson-Carson; bellhop Herbert Williamson; and security guard Brandon Turner. If convicted, they each would face up to 15 years and nine months in prison.
Reached by telephone Tuesday evening, Erickson referred a request for comment to his attorney, Michael Steinle, who didn’t return voicemail or email messages.
It was unclear if any of the other three employees had attorneys. Online court records didn’t list any for them Tuesday evening. A telephone listing for Williamson had been disconnected, and The Associated Press could not immediately locate phone numbers or other contact information for Johnson-Carson or Turner.
The Milwaukee County District Attorney’s office said in a news release that arrest warrants had been issued for all four employees. The office and the Milwaukee Police Department did not immediately respond to emails inquiring if the employees had been arrested or had attorneys.
According to a criminal complaint, the four employees dragged Mitchell out of the Hyatt Hotel on June 30 after Mitchell entered a woman’s bathroom and held him on his stomach for eight or nine minutes. One of the employees told investigators that Mitchell was having trouble breathing and repeatedly pleaded for help, according to the complaint.
An autopsy showed that Mitchell suffered from morbid obesity and had ingested cocaine and methamphetamine, the complaint said.
Hyatt surveillance video shows Mitchell frantically running into the hotel’s lobby and then into the gift shop before entering the women’s bathroom, the complaint said. A few seconds later, a woman emerges and Turner, who was off-duty but happened to be visiting staff at that moment, drags Mitchell out of the bathroom into the lobby by his shirt.
The two begin to struggle, and Turner punches Mitchell, knocking him to the floor. He then punches Mitchell six times and drags him out of the hotel with the help of a bystander. Mitchell gets up and tries to go back inside.
Williamson, Johnson-Carson and Erickson, who was on duty as the security manager, then join the fray. Together with Turner they hold Mitchell down on his stomach for eight to nine minutes before police and emergency responders arrive. The video shows that during that span, Mitchell tries to break free multiple times, and Erickson hits him with a baton before he eventually stops moving, according to the complaint.
A video taken by a witness includes audio of Mitchell moaning and saying he is sorry. An autopsy found that Mitchell was morbidly obese and had cocaine and methamphetamine in his system.
The county medical examiner ultimately determined that Mitchell died of “restraint asphyxia.” He may have lived if the employees allowed him to turn onto his side, the medical examiner said, according to the complaint.
Erickson told investigators that Mitchell was very strong and kept resisting them and tried to bite him. But the guard said he never did anything to intentionally hurt or harm Mitchell.
Turner told a detective that said that he heard women screaming in the bathroom after Mitchell entered it, and he thought Mitchell was on drugs. At one point while the group was holding Mitchell down, he moved Mitchell’s clothing off his face, he said, according to the complaint.
Johnson-Carson told investigators that Mitchell was not in a “stable sort of mind,” and he was speaking “gibberish,” the complaint said.
He said he remembered Mitchell saying “stop” and “why” and something about breathing while he was being held down. He told Williamson to stop applying pressure, which he did. Johnson-Carson said that Mitchell displayed “clear signs of extreme distress, including gags, distressed breathing and repeated pleas for help,” according to the complaint.
The complaint concludes that the employees had to have known Mitchell was in distress. “All of these factors, the gasping, the actions and words of DM, the distress that he was in, show that all four Defendants were aware that holding DM face first on the ground was ‘practically certain’ to cause impairment of his physical condition,” the complaint says.
Mitchell’s relatives and their lawyers had previously reviewed hotel surveillance video provided by the district attorney’s office. They described seeing Mitchell being chased inside the hotel by security guards and then dragged outside, where he was beaten.
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is part of a team of lawyers representing Mitchell’s family, has said video recorded by a bystander and circulating on social media shows security guards with their knees on Mitchell’s back and neck.
Crump posted a statement on X on Tuesday evening calling the charges “a significant step towards justice for the family of D’Vontaye Mitchell!”
DeAsia Harmon, Mitchell’s widow, said Tuesday that the decision was a relief. But she questioned why it took weeks.
“These people are on camera taking my husband’s life,” she said. “They should have been charged the moment they did that.”
Aimbridge Hospitality, the company that manages the hotel, said previously that several employees involved in Mitchell’s death have been fired.
The company released a statement Tuesday evening saying it had cooperated fully with law enforcement and will continue to cooperate with prosecutors. “Our hearts are with Mr. Mitchell’s family and loved ones as this case moves forward,” the statement said.
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Associated Press writer Kathleen Foody in Chicago contributed to this report.