MILWAUKEE, Wis. — A crisis intervention specialist is sounding off after video shows several security guards on top of a man who later died outside a downtown Milwaukee hotel.
"We live in a country that says innocent until proven guilty, I didn't see that in that video," Montreal Cain said.
Cain's the executive director of Mera Cares and focuses on teaching behavior tactics and de-escalating situations with the public and large corporations.
We connected with Cain after the family of Dvontaye Mitchell, the man who died outside the Hyatt Regency Sunday, questioned whether security guards were trained to deal with someone in a mental health crisis.
"Wow," Cain reacted watching the video of Mitchell being held down by four security guards.
The video doesn't show what led to the altercation, but Cain said from what he did see, it should've been handled differently.
VIDEO: Crisis intervention expert reacts to Dvontaye Mitchell's death at downtown Hyatt
"I saw a human pleading 'please, please, stop, help,' all the things we were taught as little children. If you need something, say something, and I saw that being ignored," Cain explained.
In the video, one of the four guards on top of Mitchell is looking at the person recording and yells "this is what happens when you go into the ladies' bathroom." He also screams "stay down" and "stop fighting" as Mitchell repeatedly apologizes.
"That person that's yelling is trying to clear his name. He notices that there's a cancel culture, there's a camera out, 'let me explain to you what's going on'. But what his primary job was, was to care for that person," Cain said.
Cain went into detail about the difference between someone causing imminent danger and someone in a behavior crisis.
"When you know that your life is in danger, someone is rushing towards you with a blunt force object, this person is hurting themselves or someone else," Cain added.
Cain said that's when you call 911, but when someone is emotionally unstable, you can utilize "S.T.O.P Skills".
"S.T.O.P Skills is stop, think, observe, and proceed. So, when you see a situation, just stop and process, think, is this abnormal, is this something that I think if my loved one was doing, would they need support and resources," Cain explained.
If emotions are heightened, Cain said it's best to try and being the energy level down.
"Whatever you can do to say 'hey, I'm just here to help'," Cain said. "You want that person, who may not have control over their emotions, to at least be able to have control over the situation and allow them to make those decisions, while gently reaching out to other people 'hey can you maybe call for me while I deal with this'."
That could be to call 911 in an emergency. If you do call 911 for a mental health-related situation, Cain said it's best to specify that. Otherwise, you can call 211, the social services hotline, or 988, the suicide and crisis hotline.
The family of Mitchell has hired nationally recognized attorney Ben Crump.
We have reached out to Hyatt several times for comment and have not heard back.
For now, Milwaukee Police said they're not considering this a criminal investigation until they know Mitchell's cause of death.
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