FLINT, Mich. (AP) — Prosecutors who dropped charges against eight people in the Flint water scandal explained their decision in a public forum Friday night, telling frustrated and shocked residents they must look at hundreds of mobile devices and millions of documents that a previous investigative team never reviewed.
Michigan Solicitor General Fadwa Hammoud and Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy spoke to about 100 residents Friday night at a union hall in the city, two weeks after dismissing chargesagainst the former state health director and other officials. The three-year probe was relaunched, and charges could be refiled.
"We have received information that is absolutely relevant to our investigation that we have never had before," said Hammoud, who took over the investigation of Flint's lead-contaminated water in January following the election of Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel. Former Attorney General Bill Schuette, a Republican, had launched and overseen the probe.
Hammoud cited the need to review 20 million documents and said the new criminal team uncovered in a month, with search warrants, what previous investigators had not retrieved in three years.
The prosecutors criticized how their predecessors gave seven other officials plea deals resulting in no jail time or criminal records.
"I've never seen anything like it," said Worthy, who also joined the criminal team.
Some residents were shocked by the massive amount of new materials being reviewed and that the statute of limitations for one felony crime, misconduct in office, could expire in nine months. One woman criticized prosecutors for waiting two weeks to come to Flint, leading them to apologize.
Other residents thanked the new prosecutors, agreeing the prior probe was inadequate and blasting the plea deals.
Arthur Woodson said "they got less time for poisoning over 98,000 people than somebody stealing a slice of pizza. People have died. ... I have PTSD. It's hard to trust. But what I heard here today: Y'all have been totally honest."
Other people demanded charges against former Gov. Rick Snyder, who has apologized for his administration's role in the crisis, and a closer look at local officials involved in the construction of a regional pipeline that was a factor in the switch to pulling water from the Flint River. The prosecutors said they will go where the evidence takes them.
"A lot of us are really angry, and we want to see some justice," said Claudia Perkins-Milton, adding that the new prosecutors "are the ones to do it."
"There's a lot of criminals in this case," she said. "It's wide open."
Another resident, Laura MacIntyre, criticized how prosecutors announced their decision.
"Do you not realize how it felt when you released to the press dropping the charges without coming here first? Without any kind of communication?" she said. "We understand your legal position. We do. We're not stupid. But you could have at least, at the very least, said, 'We're going to be doing something. We can't talk about it.' Just any kind of acknowledgment that we exist before going to the press."
She said the meeting should have been held sooner. Hammoud apologized for the delay.
Flint faced a health emergency after lead from old pipes leached into drinking water in 2014 and 2015 due to a lack of corrosion-control treatment following a change in the water source while the financially strapped city was under state emergency management. The switch to the Flint River also has been linked to a deadly Legionnaires' disease outbreak.
Four of the eight defendants were facing the most serious charge — involuntary manslaughter — including former state Department of Health and Human Services Director Nick Lyon, who was accused of failing to timely warn the public about the spike in Legionnaires' cases.
Schuette has defended his team's work and has denied that politics played a role when charges were brought in the prelude to his unsuccessful run to succeed Snyder, also a Republican. He has said charging decisions were made with "painstaking thoroughness" with the assistance of experienced people such as the former head of Detroit's FBI office, Genesee County's Democratic prosecutor and retired judges. He also has said he had to hire outside lawyers and investigators because his department had already begun to defend the state in civil cases.
"The Office of Special Counsel stands by our investigation into the Flint Water Crisis," Schuette said in a statement Friday. "We took the steps that preserved the evidence in this case. And our work was not done. Two judges bound significant cases over for trial. And we were prepared to go forward with robust prosecutions. But this is not about prosecutor versus prosecutor. This has always been, and only been, a fight for justice for the families of Flint. We acknowledge it's their case now and we wish them success in their pursuit of justice for the people of Flint."
