MILWAUKEE, Wis. — It's been 12 days since D'Vontaye Mitchell died outside the downtown Hyatt Regency after four hotel employees pinned him to the ground.
Milwaukee Police said they have referred murder charges for four individuals to the district attorney's office. The DA said it could be weeks before it makes a charging decision.
Video of the moments leading up to Mitchell's death have shaken not only Milwaukee, but the nation. The men you see in that video, holding down Mitchell, are not all security guards.
The Mitchell Family's attorneys said it was one on-duty security guard, one off-duty security guard, a bellman and a front desk clerk.
"I was forced to help, and I felt that if I didn't help I was gonna lose my job," one of those employees told us Friday.
"I can't sleep, I can't eat. It is, it is very disturbing to me because I sat there and witnessed a man lose his life," the employee continued.
We're not naming this former Hyatt Regency employee because he hasn't been criminally charged.
"I was upstairs helping a customer with their baggage in their room. I walked downstairs and it was already a heated wrestle match," the employee said. "When they got him outside, management asked me to help, and all I did was I approached Mr. Mitchell when they had him on the ground, and all I did was held him down."
"I didn't swing, I didn't hit, I didn't throw no punches, I didn't do nothing but hold him down," the employee explained.
"Did you see any of the other employees throw punches, or hit, or do anything like that," Reporter Jenna Rae asked.
"Yes, yes, yes I did, yes I did," he responded.
"What did you see from them," Rae asked.
"I seen the security guard T*** hit him several times in the head with the baton," the employee said.
TMJ4 is excluding the security guard's name since he hasn't been charged either.
The employee told us the woman seen in one of the witness videos is the manager who directed him to hold down Mitchell.
We're told she wasn't the only one.
"Did T*** have any direction he was giving you," Rae asked the employee.
"Yes T***, T***. I tried to get off of Mr. Mitchell two or three times and T*** told me to get back on him," the employee said.
We called that security guard too. He told us to call his attorney and hung up.
It's been nearly two weeks since this incident happened, and it's still unclear how it even started.
"I do not believe the Hyatt has turned over the video footage from the initial interaction," Attorney William Sulton said. "The video footage that we do have, that we have seen, clearly shows him running away from Mr. T***."
Sulton and B'Ivory Lamar, who are representing Mitchell's family, sat down with us Friday morning. They said they have only seen some Hyatt Regency security footage of the incident.
"This man had fractured ribs. This is a beating. That's what this is, and they beat him to death. That's what this is," Sulton added.
"It looked like these individuals worked in unity. They were some type of uniform, effort, it wasn't much questioning of should I get involved or anything. It was like business as usual," Lamar echoed.
The employee we talked to said it's something he never expected on the job.
"I wanna give my deepest apologies to his whole entire family," the employee said.
We're told the district attorney's office's homicide detectives have been investigating Mitchell's death since the beginning.
The DA is waiting on autopsy results and said charges won't come for a few weeks.
This is a story TMJ4 is staying on top of and will update you when there's new information.
It’s about time to watch on your time. Stream local news and weather 24/7 by searching for “TMJ4” on your device.
Available for download on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, and more.
