By Brendan O’Brien
(Reuters) – Four former Hyatt Regency hotel employees in Milwaukee were charged with murder in the death of a Black man who was pinned to the ground in a prone position for several minutes during an altercation that echoed the choking death of George Floyd.
The Milwaukee County District Attorney charged each of the four men with one count of felony murder on Tuesday. They are accused of killing D’Vontaye Mitchell, 43, on June 30 outside of the hotel in downtown Milwaukee, according to a criminal complaint posted online by TMJ4, a local NBC affiliate.
Charged were security guards Todd Erickson and Brandon Turner, Devin Johnson-Carson, a front desk clerk, and bellman Herbert Williamson. Turner was not on duty at the time of the incident. The men, who were dismissed by Hyatt after the incident, face up to 15 years and nine months in prison if convicted.
Officials in the district attorney’s office and the Milwaukee Police Department were not immediately available for comment. Attorneys for the four men were not yet listed on an online database for the Wisconsin court system.
Erickson is white. The three other men are Black, according to the database.
Mitchell’s widow DeAsia Harmon told WISN, a local ABC affiliate, that the men should have been charged soon after the incident.
“It’s a relief. I’m grateful that they’re charging them with something. I’m not satisfied,” she said.
The incident has evoked memories of the killing of George Floyd, who was Black, in Minneapolis in 2020, when police officers pinned him to the ground in a prone position for several minutes. That incident, captured on cellphone video, unleashed a wave of protests worldwide against police brutality and racism.
Four officers were eventually convicted of manslaughter and other crimes in Floyd’s death.
The Milwaukee altercation began when Turner confronted Mitchell after he ran through the lobby in a “frantic manner,” briefly entering the gift shop and then a women’s bathroom, prosecutors wrote in the complaint.
A scuffle between the two ensued and punches were thrown before an hotel guest and Turner dragged Mitchell outside on to the hotel driveway. Turner, along with other three defendants, then wrestled Mitchell to the pavement where they punched him, beat him with a baton and pinned him to the ground in a prone position for eight to nine minutes, prosecutors wrote.
“Towards the end of that time period, Mitchell has stopped showing movement or resistance or other signs of life,” they wrote, noting that paramedics who arrived on the scene were not able to revive Mitchell.
Cellphone video footage captured Mitchell breathing heavily as he says “please” and “I’m sorry” while the men yell “stay down” and “stop fighting,” the complaint said.
The Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office found in its autopsy that Mitchell’s death was caused by restraint asphyxia and the manner of death was homicide. The medical examiner also found cocaine and methamphetamine in Mitchell’s system, the complaint said.
(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Chicago; Editing by Frank McGurty and Jonathan Oatis)
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