 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Marina Towers fall victim identified Detroit-area law student was engaged, had large extended family
(Above) A heavily damaged delivery van, parked Wednesday morning on North Dearborn Street, where a 28-year-old Michigan man landed after falling from the west tower of Marina City. Click on image to view larger version. 14-May-10 – Police are still trying to determine what caused a 28-year-old man from Michigan to fall from the west tower of Marina City on Wednesday morning. “At first look, it appears that he may have jumped,” said Chicago Police spokesperson Robert Perez on Thursday, but “we’re still trying to determine whether he fell off, jumped, or was pushed.” According to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office, the victim is John William Cooper, a white male from Farmington Hills, a suburb of Detroit in southeast Michigan. The cause of death, says spokesperson Pamela Smith, is “multiple injuries due to fall from height.” It happened at about 9:48 a.m. A witness who was standing near the southwest corner of the plaza level at Marina City said he “heard a loud boom and I thought that a tire had blown out on someone’s car so I walked over to see what was going on and this man was laying on top of this van.” “The paramedics and the police were here very quickly,” according to the witness. “They went right to work on him but he was gone.” According to Chicago police spokesperson John Mirabelli, the victim may have jumped from the roof of the west tower, a 60-story building. He landed, on his back, on a white delivery van parked on the east side of North Dearborn Street, outside House of Blues. The van was at Marina City to pick up and deliver laundry at Marina Cleaners. Officer Mirabelli says when police and fire department personnel arrived, they pronounced the victim dead at the scene. “Right now, it’s ruled as a death investigation, pending further investigation of our detectives.” Witnesses believed the man fell from closer to the 24th floor, which would be a residential floor, but according to Mirabelli, “It appears he may have jumped potentially from the rooftop.” The man was described by witnesses as young, about 5’9” tall, medium build, and short hair.
(Above) A view of the van from the 29th floor of the west tower at Marina City. Click on image to view larger version. Law student was engaged, had large extended family Funeral services for John Cooper are scheduled for Tuesday in Oak Park, Michigan. According to an obituary published on Sunday in The Detroit News, Cooper was attending law school at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He had graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Michigan School of Business. With a Masters degree in accounting, he had worked as a CPA.
Cooper was engaged to a 26-year-old woman currently living in the Minneapolis area. According to a wedding registry on Amazon.com, the wedding date was August 15, 2010. He had one sister. His father was deceased. The death notice for the 28-year-old man says he had “a large, loving extended family and many friends.” Evidence of this was on his web site, www.johnwcooper.com, that contains numerous photographs – but only as recent as Christmas 2007 – of Cooper on trips with friends and at family gatherings. According to his Facebook page, Cooper was originally from Bloomfield Township, another suburb of Detroit.
|
