In a move that elicited fresh concerns and demands for justice, the Michigan prosecution team investigating the Flint water crisis announced Thursday that it was dismissing all pending criminal charges against eight former and current officials and launching a new probe, citing concerns with the initial one.
“There is no more time for dubious foot-dragging; it’s time for Flint to see some justice.”
Click Here: COLLINGWOOD MAGPIES 2019—Mary Grant, Food & Water Watch
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel appointed Fadwa Hammoud as the state’s solicitor general in January and assigned her to take over the criminal cases related to Flint’s water crisis, which started five years ago when a governor-appointed emergency manager switched the city’s water supply to a polluted river.
“We cannot provide the citizens of Flint the investigation they rightly deserve by continuing to build on a flawed foundation. Dismissing these cases allows us to move forward according to the non-negotiable requirements of a thorough, methodical, and ethical investigation,” Hammoud and Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy, who has been assisting with the cases, said Thursday.
The prosecutors dismissed charges against former Michigan Department of Health and Human Services director Nick Lyon; Eden Wells, the state’s former chief medical executive; former emergency managers Gerald Ambrose and Darnell Earley; DHHS officials Nancy Peeler and Robert Scott; Michigan Department of Environmental Quality official Patrick Cook; and former Flint Department of Public Works Director Howard Croft. Because the charges were dismissed without prejudice, “we are not precluded from refiling charges against the defendants,” the prosecutors emphasized, “or adding new charges and additional defendants.”
Mary Grant, Public Water for All Campaign Director at Food & Water Watch, said in a statement that the decision “can only be acceptable if the prosecution team refiles and aggressively pursues new charges swiftly.”
“Flint residents deserve a comprehensive and just investigation that results in appropriate restitution. We are outraged to hear about the political influence that muddied the previous cases through failure to seek all evidence,” Grant added. “We know one thing for sure: the Snyder administration and his emergency managers made the disastrous decisions that caused the Flint water crisis. We must hold them accountable and everyone who aggravated this public health calamity. There is no more time for dubious foot-dragging; it’s time for Flint to see some justice.”
Flint residents, as BuzzFeed reported Thursday, “are still dealing with the crisis’ fallout: children whose neurological development may have been irreversibly damaged; pregnant women who had miscarriages after drinking the contaminated water—the number of miscarriages spiked by 58 percent after the water was switched; people whose trust in their elected officials and reliance on the infrastructure that runs through their city has been turned upside down; and corroded lead pipes on the main water lines and in peoples’ homes that are yet to be replaced.”
Some Flint residents and activists, such as Melissa Mays, expressed skepticism about the prosecutors’ move. Mays told the New York Times, “My heart breaks for the families that have lost loved ones.”
“This is not justice for them. It just seems like a political ploy,” she said. “The only thing it tells me is our lives don’t matter.”
Nayyirah Shariff, director of the grassroots group Flint Rising, called the announcement “a slap in the face to Flint residents.”
Shariff told the Detroit Free Press, “I’m very disappointed with Dana Nessel’s office because she ran on a platform that she was going to provide justice for Flint resident, and it doesn’t seem like justice is coming.”
SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT