PONTIAC, Michigan — Four security guards are on trial this week in the death of a man who was pinned to the ground during a violent struggle at a suburban Detroit shopping mall more than a decade ago.
McKenzie Cochran, 25, was unarmed and repeatedly told guards, “I can’t breathe,” as he lay facedown after an altercation at a jewelry store in the Northland Center in 2014, witnesses said.
The Oakland County District Attorney’s Office declined to file charges at the time after consulting with the U.S. Department of Justice. But Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel intervened in 2021 with involuntary manslaughter charges against four men.
The case of Cochran, who was Black, gained renewed attention in 2020 during a local district attorney race and amid outrage over the death of George Floyda black man who was pinned to the ground by Minneapolis police. Prosecutors have not alleged that race was a factor in Cochran’s death.
Jury selection begins on Monday.
Defense attorney Blake Wright said the guards were just going about their lives when things suddenly started moving again.
“It’s a politicization of the criminal justice system,” Wright told The Associated Press. “This obviously comes out of what happened to George Floyd and the police misconduct across the country. This case is just completely different than any of the others. These are security guards just trying to subdue a man with mental health issues.”
But Gerald Thurswell, an attorney who represented Cochran’s family in a lawsuit, said video footage of the struggle would be strong evidence.
“You don’t kill someone because they’re acting strange. That’s what happened here: He was acting strange. He was acting strange,” Thurswell said.
Prosecutors said the guards used excessive force in holding Cochran down as he lay face down on the ground for as long as 15 minutes.
Cochran, who had an enlarged heart, died of asphyxiation, an autopsy found.
In court papers, defense attorneys argued that the men – John Seiberling, Gaven King, Aaron Maree and Lucius Hamilton – acted in self-defense during a chaotic time.
On January 28, 2014, a jewelry store owner called mall security to report that Cochran was “acting crazy” and had threatened to kill someone. Seiberling and a senior security guard, Gary Chaffin, told Cochran to leave the mall, but he didn’t.
Cochran rushed Chaffin, who pepper-sprayed him. Prosecutors admit that Cochran “actively resisted” and “overpowered” the guards. Three more guards arrived, and all five ended up on the ground with him.
“His words went from ‘get off me’ to ‘I can’t breathe,’” witness Hoy Monk testified earlier in the case.
Cochran lay motionless, his wrists cuffed behind his back, when Southfield police arrived.
Defense attorney Doraid Elder said the guards made a “split second decision” to help Chaffin and stop an “attack” by Cochran.
“They do not have time to judge who was right or wrong in the confrontation that occurred,” Elder said in a court document.
Chaffin is not part of the business; he died three years later, in 2017. The shopping center no longer exists after being demolished for redevelopment in 2021.
A former Detroit coroner, Dr. Carl Schmidt, is expected to testify for prosecutors. He has reviewed autopsy reports and said Cochran’s death should probably be classified as a homicide.
“Mr. Cochran was restrained by a number of individuals who attempted to prevent him from moving, so if he had not been restrained, I believe he may have survived,” Schmidt testified at a key hearing in 2023.
He said Cochran’s enlarged heart “may have made him more susceptible to sudden death.”
In 2014, then-District Attorney Jessica Cooper said the guards made mistakes but that the negligence did not rise to the level of a crime. The attorney general’s office is asking Judge Martha Anderson to bar the defense from revealing that history at trial.
Cooper believed it would be “difficult to secure a conviction,” Assistant Attorney General LaDonna Logan said. “That belief is within the discretion of a prosecutor, but clearly not shared by the attorney general.”
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