An accident? Experts clash at trial of 3 guards in 2014 death of man at Detroit-area mall

DETROIT (AP) — Two experts gave different opinions Thursday about the death of a man who was pinned to the floor by security guards at a Detroit-area mall in 2014.

The Oakland County medical examiner defended the official conclusion that McKenzie Cochran’s death was an accident. Moments earlier, another forensic pathologist told jurors that the manner of death should be considered “indeterminate” or possibly a homicide.

Three guards are on trial for involuntary manslaughter, more than 10 years after Cochran died at Northland Center in Southfield. Video showed him resisting while guards were restraining him, following a call from a mall store about trouble.

Cochran, 25, who had an enlarged heart, repeatedly said, “I can’t breathe,” according to witnesses. He died of asphyxiation.

Dr. Carl Schmidt said “young people in good shape” can tolerate being face down on the ground and restrained. But others, he told the jury, may not be able to move their chest to adequately breathe, which can lead to heart failure.

“It was not an accident,” Schmidt said.

Schmidt, a former medical examiner in Wayne County, had no role in the autopsy in 2014. State Attorney General Dana Nessel brought him into the case years later to look at autopsy records and video of the confrontation and offer an opinion.

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Cochran’s death was formally classified as an accident in 2014, and the local prosecutor did not pursue charges against the guards. Nessel reversed course in 2021 after the case became an issue in the 2020 race for prosecutor.

John Seiberling, Gaven King and Aaron Maree are accused of gross negligence in how they dealt with Cochran at the mall.

The doctor who performed the autopsy, Cheryl Loewe, died in 2023. So defense lawyers summoned her boss, Dr. L.J. Dragovic, to speak to jurors. He said the attorney general’s office had asked him to reconsider Loewe’s opinion.

“I have no basis to change this report because this report is well-substantiated by critical evidence. I cannot spin something out of it,” Dragovic, the Oakland County medical examiner, testified.

He said Schmidt’s conclusions were “strange.”

“He claimed here, right in front of all of us, this is not an accident. On the basis of what?” Dragovic said. “If someone shows me an intentional purposeful act, that’s a different thing.”

The confrontation at the mall began when a jewelry store owner called security to report that Cochran had said he wanted to kill somebody. He refused to leave the mall and was pepper-sprayed by a guard.

The conflict soon involved five guards, all trying to restrain Cochran while one attempted to handcuff him.

One of the five pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter last week. A guard who led the encounter with Cochran died in 2017.

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