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All 4 Milwaukee hotel workers charged with murder in D’Vontaye Mitchell’s death now in custody
The last of four hotel workers charged in connection with D’Vontaye Mitchell’s death was taken into custody Friday, more than five weeks after he and the others allegedly piled onto the Black man while trying to remove him from a Milwaukee hotel.
Herbert Williamson was taken into custody three days after he and his three co-defendants were charged with being a party to felony murder in Mitchell’s June 30 death at a Hyatt Regency hotel, according to Milwaukee County jail records.
Two of the hotel workers — Devin Johnson-Carson, 23 and Todd Erickson, 60 — were taken into custody on Thursday. Johnson-Carson worked at the front desk and Erickson was the security manager on duty on June 30 at the hotel in during the afternoon of the altercation, authorities said.
Samantha Mitchell / AP
Williamson, a bellhop at the hotel, and the three others were charged after prosecutors scoured video showing them piling on top Mitchell as they tried to remove him from the hotel’s lobby before he died.
Williamson, 52, was charged with felony murder along with hotel security guard Todd Erickson, 60; front desk worker Devin Johnson-Carson, 23; and security guard Brandon Turner, 35. If convicted, each would face up to 15 years and nine months in prison.
Aimbridge Hospitality, the company that manages the hotel, said previously that it fired several employees who were involved in Mitchell’s death.
“We are saddened and shocked by what happened to D’vontaye Mitchell at the Hyatt Regency Milwaukee, and we extend our deepest sympathies to his family and loved ones,” Aimbridge Hospitality said in a statement.
Williamson, Turner and Johnson-Carson are Black, while Erickson is white, according to online court records.
Mitchell’s family’s attorneys have likened his death to the murder of George Floyd, a Black man who died in 2020 after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee on his neck for about nine minutes.
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.
According to a criminal complaint, Mitchell ran into the hotel on June 30 and entered a women’s bathroom. An employee dragged him outside and, with the three others, held him down on his stomach for eight or nine minutes while Mitchell gasped for breath.
The county medical examiner determined that Mitchell died of “restraint asphyxia” and noted that he might have lived had the employees allowed him to turn onto his side, according to the criminal complaint.
Mitchell died from “restraint asphyxia and toxic effects of cocaine and methamphetamine,” the county medical examiner ruled in a report released last week. The Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office said earlier this month that the 43-year-old’s death was being investigated as a homicide.
Erickson was ordered held on a $50,000 cash bond and Turner on a $30,000 cash bond after both made initial court appearances this week, records show. They have preliminary hearings scheduled for Aug. 19. Johnson-Carson had an initial court hearing scheduled for Friday. Records didn’t list the date of Williamson’s initial hearing.
All four remained in custody as of Friday morning, according to jail records.
An Attorney for Erickson didn’t immediately respond to Friday messages seeking comment. Matt Last, an attorney representing Turner, told CBS News in a statement, “We are disappointed in the District Attorney’s decision to charge Mr. Turner with Felony Murder. In the weeks to come we will be working to prove Mr. Turner is innocent in this matter.”
Court records didn’t list attorneys for Williamson or Johnson-Carson.
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Paul Whelan, freed in prisoner swap with Russia, tells other American detainees: “We’re coming for you”
Washington — Nearly seven weeks after the Russians handed over Paul Whelan on a tarmac in Ankara, Turkey, the Marine veteran stood on the steps of the U.S. Capitol with a message for other Americans who are held abroad.
“We’re coming for you,” he told reporters Tuesday night after he met with lawmakers. “It might take time, but we’re coming.”
Whelan said he spoke with lawmakers about how the government can better support detainees after they’re released.
“We spoke about how the next person’s experience could be better,” he said. “What the government could do for the next person that’s held hostage and comes home — the care and support that other people might need, especially people that are in a worse situation. There are people coming back that lived in the dirt without shoes for three years, people that were locked up in hideous conditions for 20 years. They need support.”
CBS News
The U.S. secured Whelan’s release in August in one of the largest prisoner swaps since the end of the Cold War. The complex deal came after months of sensitive negotiations between the U.S., Russia, Germany, Slovenia, Poland and Norway.
As part of the deal, Russia released 16 prisoners while the Western countries released eight Russians. Whelan was released alongside Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, Russian-American radio journalist Alsu Kurmasheva and Vladimir Kara-Murza, a U.S. green card holder and Kremlin critic.
Whelan, who had been the longest-held American detainee in Russia, was arrested in December 2018 when he traveled to the country to attend a friend’s wedding. He was convicted of espionage in a secret trial and sentenced to 16 years in prison in 2020.
Whelan, his family and the U.S. government vehemently denied that he was a spy and accused Russia of using him as a political pawn. The U.S. government considered him to be wrongfully detained, a rare designation that put more government resources toward securing his release.
But a deal to secure his freedom was long elusive. He remained behind bars as Russia freed Marine veteran Trevor Reed and women’s basketball star Brittney Griner — both of whom were detained after Whelan’s arrest — in prisoner swaps with the U.S.
The U.S. said it pushed for his inclusion in both exchanges, but Russia refused. It led to Whelan advocating for his own release from a remote prison camp, calling government officials and journalists to make sure that he wasn’t forgotten.
When the plane carrying Whelan, Gershkovish and Kurmasheva landed in Maryland on Aug. 1, Whelan was the first to disembark. He was greeted by President Biden, who gave Whelan his American flag pin, and Vice President Kamala Harris.
“Whether he likes it or not, he changed the world,” Rep. Haley Stevens, a Michigan Democrat, told reporters Tuesday.
Whelan’s case and his family’s constant pressure on the U.S. government brought more attention to the cases of Americans who are wrongfully detained by foreign governments.
Haley said Whelan is a reminder to other Americans considering traveling to Russia that “you have a target on your back.”
Whelan said it’s been an adjustment acclimating to life back in the U.S., especially learning the latest technology like his iPhone 15.
“I was in a really remote part of Russia,” he said. “We really didn’t have much. The conditions were poor. The Russians said the poor conditions were part of the punishment. And coming back to see this sort of thing now is a bit of a shock, but it’s a good shock.”