Shocking new video shows a Black man being pinned down to his death outside a Milwaukee hotel while pleading for his life, in footage that bears eerily similarities to the 2020 death of George Floyd in police custody.
D’Vontay Mitchell, 43, was choked to death during a fight at the Hyatt Regency in Milwaukee on June 30. Hotel security and guests dragged him from the lobby to the sidewalk, held him down and punched and kicked him repeatedly. WITI-TV News Program.
Mitchell’s death has been ruled a homicide. Friday by the coroner’s office.The cause of death was said to be “asphyxiation due to restraint and toxic effects of cocaine and methamphetamine.”
The family of the dead man is now demanding answers.
“We’re just fighting for basic, simple justice,” the family’s lawyer, William Sutton, told the outlet. “We’re not asking for anything extraordinary. We’re not asking for anything extraordinary.”
“There’s a guy who was beaten to death on the sidewalk,” Sutton added. “Yes, he should be sued.”
CCTV footage released by Sutton shows the fatal collision from three sides.
Mitchell was seen running through the lobby and into the ladies’ restroom, pursued by Hyatt Regency security guards and staff.
Another angle shows him being led into the hotel lobby, thrown to the ground and restrained.
Employees and unidentified hotel guests then dragged Mitchell onto the sidewalk, where several of them held him down and punched and kicked him.
He was unresponsive when police arrived and was later pronounced dead at a local hospital.
Mitchell’s family claims the use of force was unnecessary and excessive, despite his intoxicated state.
“If he’d been wrong, he could have gone to jail,” Desia Harmon, the dead man’s widow, told WITI. “I would have felt a lot better about that, but this isn’t. It’s not fair.”
Milwaukee police have referred felony murder charges against the four people involved in the deadly brawl to the District Attorney’s Office, which is still reviewing the case.
A spokesman for Aimbridge Hospitality, which operates the Hyatt Regency in Milwaukee, said in a statement last month that several employees involved in the incident have been fired.
The incident has already been compared to the death of George Floyd, who died in police custody in Minneapolis on May 5, 2020, which sparked widespread protests.
Floyd’s death led to the arrest and conviction of several officers, including Derek Chauvin, who was seen on video pressing his knee against the handcuffed prisoner’s neck as he pleaded for air.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel columnist James E. Casey highlighted the similarities between the two men’s deaths.
“These deaths are tragically similar and follow a sickeningly similar pattern,” a columnist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel wrote. James Casey wrote last month: After Mitchell’s death.
“As they process their immeasurable loss, the families are compelled to plead for justice even in the face of irrefutable video evidence,” Casey wrote.
