4 former workers of the Milwaukee hotel get probation and a time served in the death of Dogpile
Madison, Wisconsin – – A judge condemned four former employees of the Milwaukee hotel accused of having killed a man in a suffocating dogpile to a mixture of probation and time purged on Wednesday, which saved them behind bars.
Milwaukee County Count Judge David Swanson exercised the death penalties of Vontaye Mitchell in June 2024 during a series of hearings that lasted all day. Orders put an end to a case that made comparisons with the murder of the police of George Floyd in 2020.
The judge ordered the former security guard of Hyatt, Todd Erickson, to serve two years in prison, but aroused the sentence and placed him for two years. Another former security guard, Brandon Turner, obtained a year in prison, but Swanson also suspended this sentence and placed it in probation for a year.
Former Bellhop Herbert Williamson was sentenced to 10 days in prison with credit for 10 days already purged. Former reception worker Devin Johnson-Carson was sentenced to serving four days in prison with a credit for four days already served.
The lawyers of Erickson, Turner and Williamson did not immediately return to messages. Johnson’s lawyer Craig Robert Johnson told the Associated Press in an e-mail that the sentence was appropriate since Johnson-Carson was trying to protect customers and hotel staff and never intended to seriously injure Mitchell.
According to investigators, Mitchell ran into the Hyatt hall and entered the women’s bathroom. Later, two women told the detectives that Mitchell had tried to lock them in the bathroom.
Turner left Mitchell from the bathroom and with a guest dragged him off the hall on a hotel driveway. Turner, Erickson, Williamson and Johnson fought with Mitchell before taking him to the ground and accumulating on him.
The hotel’s surveillance video shows that Johnson-Carson holding Mitchell’s legs while Erickson, Turner and Williamson kept the upper body. They kept it pinned for eight to nine minutes. As the emergency speakers arrived, Mitchell had stopped breathing.
A medical examiner ruled on his death a homicide, noting that the immediate cause of Mitchell’s death was suffocation and toxic effects of cocaine and methamphetamine.
Prosecutors initially charged the four employees to have been part of the crime murder. Turner and Erickson both pleaded guilty to this chief. Williamson and Johnson have pleaded guilty to a reduction in the battery leader of crimes.
Mitchell’s family lawyers compared his death to the murder of Floyd, a deceased black man after a White Minneapolis police officer kneeling around nine minutes. The death of Floyd sparked a national calculation on racial relations.
Mitchell was black. Judicial files identify Erickson like White and Turner, Williamson and Johnson as Black.
The workers told investigators that Mitchell was strong and tried to bite Erickson, but they didn’t want to injure him. Ambridge Hospitality, the company that manages the Hyatt, dismissed them.
Mitchell’s family has reached a confidential settlement with Hyatt.
