Flint, MI — As Michigan residents watch the scapegoats thrown to the lions to take the blame for the higher ups who are ultimately responsible for the mass poisoning that is taking place in Flint, behind the scenes are some disturbing events unfolding.
Earlier this week it was announced that the Flint water crisis will be investigated and prosecuted as a crime. Immediately after that announcement, the man who ran the city’s treatment plant and two state environmental officials were arrest and charged with felonies on Wednesday for allegedly misleading regulators about the poisoned water.
After the arrests, prosecutors promised that there would be more charges coming.
The news of arrests has managed to pacify the nation for the moment. However, it is far from enough. As Truth-Out reports, Governor Snyder has yet to be even questioned on the matter.
The charges come as Michigan’s Republican Governor Rick Snyder said he has not been questioned by prosecutors in connection with the crisis. Protesters have called for Governor Snyder to resign over his handling of the Flint water crisis, which began when the city’s unelected emergency manager, appointed by Governor Snyder, switched the source of the city’s drinking water from the Detroit system to the corrosive Flint River, and the water corroded Flint’s aging pipes, causing lead to leach into the drinking water.
In March, Gov. Snyder, along with a number of other current and former state employees were named as defendants in a slew of lawsuits relating to the poisoning of thousands. In response to the lawsuits, Snyder quickly used taxpayer funds, to the tune of $500,000 to hire attorneys to defend himself.
As the corruption begins to seep out of all levels of the Michigan government, some surprising deaths have happened as well.
Just two days before the arrests were made of Michigan officials, the woman at the center of the lawsuit against the state was brutally gunned down inside her own home.
Sasha Avonna Bell was one of the first of a growing number of people to file a lawsuit in connection with the Flint water crisis after she claimed that her child had been lead poisoned, reports mlive.
On Tuesday, Bell and her friend Sacorya Renee Reed were found shot to death in her home and, while police say they have someone in custody, no charges have been filed.
The reason Bell’s case was so important is it determined the future of more than five dozen lawsuits that were in danger of being transferred to a U.S. District Court on a motion of one of the defendants, engineering company Lockwood, Andrews & Newnam (LAN).
Moving the case out of the community where it took place could have played a damning role in watering down the lawsuits by placing it under federal jurisdiction. But, thankfully, Ann Arbor U.S. District Judge John Corbett O’Meara ruled April 13, that Bell’s case should return to the state court claiming it lacked jurisdiction to hear the case.
LAN is named in at least nine lawsuits after being “hired to oversee a refit of the city’s nearly century-old Water Treatment Plant when Flint separated from the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department in April 2014,” reports Crain’s Detroit.
What’s more, in an entirely off the wall coincidence, LAN, aside from being implicated in multiple lawsuits, also has ties to Hillary Clinton’s campaign and provides free PR for the Clinton Global Initiative, reports Claire Bernish, writing for the Antimedia.org.
As if the death of the of the key player in what can be called one of the most corrupt cases in recent American history wasn’t shocking enough, only days before Bell was murdered, a foreman at the Flint water treatment plant mysteriously dropped dead.
Matthew McFarland, 43, of Otter Lake died suddenly on Saturday, April 16, according to his obituary.
According to the Lapeer County Sheriff’s Department, a friend found McFarland unresponsive inside his home.
The department said that there were no signs of foul play. However, according to the Sheriff’s Department, the autopsy conducted on McFarland was unable to determine the cause of death. They are now awaiting the results of toxicology reports.
It is not the job of this publication to speculate on unprovable circumstances. However, we’d be remissed in our duties for not drawing attention to all these coincidences.
Hundreds of people will die, and many more will suffer for their rest of their lives for the deliberate actions of Michigan officials, who knowingly poisoned an entire city. Being held responsible for such a gruesome act of destruction is something no one, especially well-connected politicians and their friends, wants to face.
