4 hotel employees charged with being party to felony murder in connection with Black man’s death

Prosecutors charged four Milwaukee hotel employees Tuesday with being a party to felony murder in connection with D’Vontaye Mitchell’s death.

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.

Relatives of Mitchell 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 has also questioned why Milwaukee authorities had not filed any charges related to Mitchell’s death.

Aimbridge Hospitality, the company that manages the hotel, said previously that several employees involved in Mitchell’s death have been fired.