Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette called for two state officials to resign Thursday, after his office recently indicted them over their role in Flint’s water contamination crisis.
Schuette recently indicted five state health and environmental officials for involuntary manslaughter. Among those indicted were Michigan Department of Health and Human Services Director Nick Lyon. Michigan Department of Health and Human Services Chief Medical Executive Dr. Eden Wells was also charged with lying to a peace officer and obstruction of justice.
The attorney general’s comments were made after being pressed by a reporter with The Detroit News to respond to Michigan Governor Rick Snyder‘s public pronouncement to keep Wells and Lyon on the job and stand up for them. Schuette said:
“We charged those two individuals with serious crimes. Two felonies for the director of health and human services, and one felony and one misdemeanor to the chief medical executive of the department of health and human services. To me, that’s proper for them to resign. That’s my viewpoint.”
The reporter then noted that Snyder classified Wells and Lyon as “key to Flint’s recovery.” Schuette was unmoved, saying: “My job is to get it right. For some people to say that nameless, faceless bureaucrats who were in charge of poisoning children…to think that no one’s responsible for that? That’s outrageous.”
The Flint water crisis, which led to an outbreak of Legionnaire’s Disease, 12 deaths and 79 other related illnesses, is ongoing–as residents are still being instructed by officials to boil or filter all their water until the city’s lead pipes are replaced by 2020 at the earliest.
[image via screengrab, video courtesy The Detroit News]
Follow Colin Kalmbacher on Twitter: @colinkalmbacher
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