PONTIAC, Mich. (AP) — Three security guards who held a man to the floor at a Detroit-area mall in 2014 were acquitted Friday of involuntary manslaughter in his death in a case that was reopened years later by state prosecutors.
The jury returned with a verdict in Oakland County court after roughly an hour.
McKenzie Cochran, a 25-year-old Black man with an enlarged heart, repeatedly said, “I can’t breathe,” while five guards restrained him at Northland Center, following a trouble call to security by a mall tenant, witnesses said.
The struggle was recorded on dark, grainy mall video, as well as by onlookers. Cochran was handcuffed after about 10 minutes and placed against a pillar while guards waited for police and paramedics. The cause of death was asphyxiation.
During closing arguments, a prosecutor urged jurors to apply “common sense” and convict the guards, arguing that their excessive force and gross negligence led to the death.
But a defense expert said they acted reasonably under the circumstances.
People in the courtroom applauded and cheered after the three not-guilty verdicts were read. The men — John Seiberling, Gaven King and Aaron Maree — embraced one another and their attorneys.
Prosecutors from the state attorney general’s office declined to comment.
In January 2014, the guards had responded to a call from an anxious store owner who said Cochran had said he wanted to kill somebody. The encounter grew from two guards initially to five. Video showed them asking the unarmed man to stop resisting.
“This guy presented a serious threat from the information they had,” said Charles Key, a former Baltimore police supervisor. “All they’re trying to do is handcuff. They don’t use any other force other than the initial pepper spray.”
Assistant Attorney General LaDonna Logan said the guards were not encouraged to restrain or arrest people when working at Northland.
“When a man says several times, ‘I can’t breathe,’ common sense says that these defendants should have repositioned him. They did nothing,” Logan told the jury. “When that man was too weak to talk anymore and all he does is wail and cry, common sense says the situation is dire and action needs to be taken.”
“Use your common sense today,” the prosecutor said, “and find them guilty of involuntary manslaughter.”
Cochran’s death was classified by the medical examiner as an accident in 2014, and the Oakland County prosecutor did not pursue charges, partly based on Key’s opinion about the confrontation.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel reversed course in 2021 and filed charges amid national outrage over the death of George Floyd, a Black man who was pinned to the ground by Minneapolis police.
Defense lawyers repeatedly reminded the jury of the decade that has passed since Cochran’s death.
“They had all this information 10 years ago. No charges. There was no negligence,” Wright Blake said. “So what changed between 2014 and 2021? … Is it her own political gains?”
Blake said there was no new evidence, except for the opinion of a forensic pathologist, Dr. Carl Schmidt, who looked at records and testified that the death was not an accident and might be considered a homicide.
Another lawyer, Jamil Khuja, said Schmidt was Nessel’s “go-to hired gun,” though the doctor testified that he probably won’t bill the state for his work.
“If someone found a gun in that man’s pocket, they’d be hailing these men as heroes,” Khuja said. “Instead, 10 years later — not a Monday morning quarterback, a 10-years-later quarterback — come and turn their lives upside down.”
Another guard, Lucius Hamilton, pleaded guilty last week in anticipation of only 90 days in jail. The guard who led the encounter with Cochran died in 2017.
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