State prosecutors are filing for an involuntary manslaughter charge against Michigan's top medical official after the Flint water crisis. Dr. Eden Wells is now facing charges in connection to an outbreak of Legionnaires' disease which killed at least 12 people.
If Wells’ name sounds familiar, it should – she already faces charges of obstruction of justice and lying to police. A spokeswoman for Michigan's attorney general says the state intends to add involuntary manslaughter and misconduct in office to her other charges. A judge will decide whether to authorize those new charges next month. What prompted the new charges exactly? Officials are keeping that fairly close to the vest.
“I really can’t get into the details of it but I think we’d be derelict if we didn’t charge her,” says special prosecutor Todd Flood. “Based on a new review of other documents and testimony that came out last week, we believe that discovery put us in this place.”
For the record, more than 80 cases of Legionnaires' disease are believed to be linked to the water in Flint after it switched its source from Lake Huron to the Flint River in 2014. And then, high amounts of lead were found in blood samples of children in Flint in 2015.
Source: Detroit News