‘Our Lives Don’t Matter’: Flint Residents Left Stunned As Prosecutors Drop All Criminal Charges Against Officials

Some officials had been facing charges as serious as involuntary manslaughter in the case over the water contamination crisis that crippled the city of Flint, Michigan. The prosecutors say that the initial investigation was bungled and it is opting to launch a new but expanded probe. But the decision was a blow to residents who were already suspicious of the government.

The New York Times: Flint Water Prosecutors Drop Criminal Charges, With Plans To Keep Investigating 

 Fifteen state and local officials, including emergency managers who ran the city and a member of the governor’s cabinet, had been accused by state prosecutors of crimes as serious as involuntary manslaughter. Seven had already taken plea deals. Eight more, including most of the highest-ranking officials, were awaiting trial. On Thursday, more than three years after the first charges were filed, the Michigan attorney general’s office, which earlier this year passed from Republican to Democratic hands, abruptly dropped the eight remaining cases. Prosecutors left open the possibility of recharging some of those same people, and perhaps others, too. (Smith, 6/13)

The Associated Press: Charges Dropped For 8 People In The Flint Water Scandal 

 Seven people pleaded no contest earlier to misdemeanors in deals that will leave them without a criminal record. Charges were dropped against the other eight Thursday when prosecutors announced they were restarting the investigation. (6/13)

Detroit Free Press: All Flint Water Crisis Criminal Charges Dismissed By AG's Office 

 Flint residents reacted with shock and confusion. The statement from the Office of Attorney General Dana Nessel said the dismissals were a response to problems with the original investigation, launched in 2016 under former Attorney General Bill Schuette, and don't preclude recharging the original defendants or adding new ones. (Egan, 6/13)

NPR: Charges Dropped In Flint Drinking Water Investigation, Officials Vow New Probe 

 Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced the dramatic shift in a statement Thursday. "I want to remind the people of Flint that justice delayed is not always justice denied and a fearless and dedicated team of career prosecutors and investigators are hard at work to ensure those who harmed you are held accountable," Nessel said. (Gonzales, 6/13) </s> New Democratic leadership in the investigation into the Flint water crisis has sparked hope among activists that a tougher line will be taken on prosecuting officials and compensating victims of the environmental disaster.

The move comes after three years of Republicans leading the investigation saw 15 state and city officials face criminal charges or be prosecuted over decisions that led to at least 12 deaths, and likely sickened thousands more. At the same time, hundreds of civil lawsuits representing tens of thousands of victims are working their way through state and federal courts.

But critics say there’s been little accountability when Republicans headed the investigation and its targets have been let off lightly. None of the crisis’s perpetrators have paid a fine or served a day in jail for poisoning the city’s water or the subsequent cover-up. Likewise, the state isn’t paying reparations for the deaths or health problems resulting from Flint’s lead-tainted water.

Now newly elected Democratic Michigan attorney general Dana Nessel has taken over the investigation from 1 January. She enters office after a 2018 campaign in which she labeled the prosecutions “politically charged show trials” designed to benefit her predecessor, Republican Bill Schuette, who ran for governor last year.

Though Schuette’s special prosecutor, Todd Flood, initially charged suspects with felonies like involuntary manslaughter and false pretenses, he ended up negotiating seven plea deals for misdemeanors as minor as “disturbing the peace at a public meeting”.

At the same time, Schuette spent over $25m in taxpayer money on legal fees, some of which funded the state’s fights against the civil lawsuits seeking compensation.

But Nessel has pledged to fully re-evaluate the investigation, and after a week in office she announced a dramatic shift in the state’s approach to Flint.

On the criminal side, Nessel asked a Democratic prosecutor to review and take over the investigation. That could lead to more charges, or frivolous charges being dropped. Nessel also directed the state to settle civil lawsuits brought against it, which would result in victims finally receiving compensation.

With Democrats now investigating Flint, there’s a sense among many activists and community leaders that Michigan is finally serious about seeking justice for victims. The Republican-led investigation “was never about the state taking responsibility and making sure that the health of Flint’s families was the focus,” said Michigan senate minority leader and Flint resident Jim Ananich.

“It was about trying to protect the governor’s image and do public relations, and now it will be about getting Flint the justice it deserves, and making families whole,” he said.

The shift may also highlight the failure of the Republicans’ austerity measures in Michigan that many say are the crisis’s source. In November 2012, voters repealed governor Rick Snyder and the Republican-controlled legislature’s controversial emergency financial manager law. But Republicans reworked the law and rammed through a new version two months later, paving the way for Snyder to install a financial manager in Flint.

That financial manager in April 2014 ordered the city to begin pulling water from the Flint river instead of purchasing it from Detroit as a cost saving measure. Soon after, Flint’s water turned dark as residents began experiencing lead poisoning symptoms and dying from Legionnaires disease.

A series of meaningful sentences and payouts could be viewed not just as a condemnation of those involved in the immediate crisis, but wider Republican policies, as well.

“This happens sometimes with both parties – they don’t want to admit their own party made some mistakes, and lots of mistakes were made here,” Ananich said.

Nessel is tapping Kym Worthy for the special prosecutor position, though the latter hasn’t yet accepted the offer. She’s now the prosecutor in a county that’s home to Detroit, and experts say is trusted locally after handling other complex, situations. That includes successfully processing a backlog of 11,000 untested rape kits discovered in a Detroit police station in 2010, and the successful prosecution of two white police officers who in 1992 beat to death a black man, Malice Green.

A Nessel spokesperson declined to comment, but Nessel said of Worthy in a press release: “There is no one whose opinion I value more when it comes to the complexity and importance of these cases.”

Nessel’s office hasn’t said who else could be charged should Worthy or another special prosecutor take over the case. Charges could also be dropped. During her campaign, Nessel criticized Schuette for paying Flood an hourly rate, which she said incentivized “the charging of unsustainable cases” and other measures to drag out the process.

She also questionedFlood’s impartiality. He was appointed to investigate Snyder and his administration, even though he’s a Snyder campaign donor.

On the civil side, Schuette has argued the state doesn’t have a constitutional obligation to provide clean water, and it has been difficult for those suing the government to get around the defense of sovereign immunity, which shields officials from legal responsibility. In one of the largest civil cases, a federal judge granted immunity to Snyder, high ranking environmental officials and an emergency financial manager.

That case consists of 12 class action suits consolidated into one large suit. Plaintiffs are asking for an independent monitor to ensure state health and environmental departments are complying with court orders. They’re also seeking the establishment of a fund for 100,000 people affected by the crisis.

The plaintiff’s co-counsel, Michael Pitt, says he’s more confident that victims will see some justice now that Nessel is in charge.

“She’s very dedicated to the goal of making sure the victims of state abuse and government abuse are taken care of in the proper way,” he said.

Still, the damage is so far-reaching that it’s going to be difficult to repair, said Peter Henning, a Wayne State University Law School professor and former federal prosecutor. “How much is the state willing to commit?” Henning asked.

“That’s the issue. Leaving all the legal niceties aside, how much is the state willing to pay?” </s> DETROIT -- Prosecutors dropped all criminal charges Thursday against eight people in the Flint water crisis and pledged to start from scratch the investigation into one of the worst man-made environmental disasters in U.S. history.

The stunning decision came more than three years - and millions of dollars - after authorities began examining the roots of the scandal that left Flint's water system tainted with lead. Michigan Solicitor General Fadwa Hammoud, who took control of the investigation in January after the election of a new attorney general, said “all available evidence was not pursued” by the previous team of prosecutors.

Officials took possession this week of “millions of documents and hundreds of new electronic devices, significantly expanding the scope of our investigation,” Hammoud and Wayne County prosecutor Kym Worthy said in a statement.

The efforts “have produced the most comprehensive body of evidence to date related to the Flint water crisis,” they said, putting investigators “in the best possible position to find the answers the citizens of Flint deserve.”

Hammoud's team recently used search warrants to get state-owned mobile devices of former Gov. Rick Snyder and 66 other people from storage.

Among those who had charges dismissed: Michigan's former health director, Nick Lyon, who was accused of involuntary manslaughter for allegedly failing to alert the public in a timely fashion about an outbreak of Legionnaires' disease when Flint was drawing improperly treated water from the Flint River in 2014 and 2015.

The dismissal came a day before a judge planned to announce whether a 2018 decision to send Lyon to trial would stand. Dropping the charges with just hours to spare killed the possibility of an adverse ruling and still gives prosecutors the freedom to haul Lyon into court again.

Nonetheless, defence attorney Chip Chamberlain said they “feel fantastic and vindicated.”

“We're confident that a just and fair investigation, done properly, will yield no evidence of any criminal wrongdoing,” he said.

Hammoud said she would not speak to reporters until after a June 28 town hall-style meeting with Flint residents. Her boss, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, said a “fearless” team was still on the case.

“Justice delayed is not always justice denied,” Nessel said in a statement.

“We don't know if new charges will be filed,” LeeAnne Walters, who is credited with exposing the lead contamination, told The Associated Press. “It feels kind of degrading, like all that we went through doesn't matter. Our city was poisoned, my children have health issues and the people responsible just had all the charges dropped against them.”

While waiting for a new pipeline to bring water from Lake Huron, Flint, a majority-black city of 100,000, pulled water from a river without treating it to reduce corrosive effects on old pipes. Lead contaminated the distribution system in a community where 41% of residents are classified by the government as living in poverty.

Because of its poor finances, Flint was being run by financial managers appointed by Snyder. The uproar over water quality reached a peak by fall 2015, when a doctor reported high levels of lead in children, which can cause brain damage.

Some experts also have linked the water to Legionnaires' disease, a type of pneumonia caused by bacteria that thrive in warm water and infect the lungs. People can get sick if they inhale mist or vapour, typically from cooling systems.

Flint's water no longer comes from the river and has significantly improved, but some residents are so distrustful that they continue to use bottled water.

The criminal probe began in 2016, when Bill Schuette was attorney general. He hired a Detroit-area lawyer, Todd Flood, as special prosecutor. Andy Arena, the former head of the FBI in Detroit, was a key investigator.

No one is behind bars. Seven of 15 people charged pleaded no contest to misdemeanours. Their records will eventually be scrubbed clean.

Charges were pending against eight people, including former Michigan chief medical executive Eden Wells and two men, Gerald Ambrose and Darnell Earley, who were state-appointed emergency managers in Flint. Like Lyon, Wells was charged with involuntary manslaughter.

“We understand that there will be further investigation, but do not expect it to justify any further prosecution relative to her,” Wells' attorneys, Steven Tramontin and Jerold Lax, said.

Through March, the investigation and prosecution had cost about $9.5 million, records show. State agencies separately have spent millions of dollars to provide defence lawyers to public employees.

Hammoud dismissed Flood in April and put together a new team. Flood told Detroit television station WJBK on Thursday that he wishes “all the luck in the world” to Hammoud, but he did not directly address the dismissal of cases that he had filed.

“We had an experienced, aggressive and hard-driving team. Everything we did was for the people of Flint,” Schuette, Flood's former boss, said on Twitter. </s> Several Michigan state officials, including those who reported to Gov. Rick Snyder, have been charged with involuntary manslaughter in connection with a Legionnaires' outbreak that killed 12 people during the Flint water crisis, the Michigan attorney general's office announced Wednesday.

Charges were announced for five state and city officials, including Nick Lyon, the current director of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. Former Flint emergency manager Darnell Earley, who had previously been charged, also now faces involuntary manslaughter, along with three other lower-ranking officials, according to the attorney general's office.

Another high-ranking state health department official, Eden Wells, was charged Wednesday with obstruction of justice and lying to an officer.

In all,15 people have been charged as a result of the Attorney General Bill Schuette's ongoing investigation into the Flint water crisis.

Some of the charges deal with lead poisoning, and the reason the city changed its water supply, while others deal with the spread of Legionnaires' connected to the crisis. Other charges range from willful neglect of duty, misconduct and conspiracy. </s> Michigan prosecutors upended a yearslong investigation into the Flint water crisis, dropping criminal charges against eight people and announcing a new investigation into a scandal that has embroiled the city since 2014.

“Legitimate criminal prosecutions require complete investigations,” Solicitor General Fadwa Hammoud and Wayne County Prosecutor Kym L. Worthy said on Thursday.

The... </s> FLINT, Mich. — Michigan's attorney general charged two new high-ranking state health officials Wednesday in the fourth round of criminal charges to stem from the Flint drinking-water crisis.

Six officials were charged in all — five with involuntary manslaughter — according to Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette.

"We will turn to the prosecution of this investigation," he said in at a morning news conference. "We are confident that the charges that we have filed will be upheld in the courts."
• The director of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, Nick Lyon, is charged with involuntary manslaughter and misconduct in office, both felonies.
• The department's chief medical executive, Eden Wells, is charged with obstruction of justice and lying to a police officer, also felonies.
• Flint's former state emergency manager, Darnell Earley, is charged with involuntary manslaughter. He previously was charged with felony false pretenses, conspiracy to commit false pretenses, misconduct in office; and a misdemeanor charge of willful neglect of duty.
• Flint's former Water Department manager, Howard Croft, is charged with involuntary manslaughter. He previously was charged with false pretenses and conspiracy to commit false pretenses.
• The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality's drinking water chief, Liane Shekter-Smith, is charged with involuntary manslaughter. She previously was charged with felony misconduct in office and misdemeanor willful neglect of duty.
• The district supervisor for the state Office of Drinking Water, Stephen Busch, is charged with involuntary manslaughter. Busch previously was charged with felony misconduct in office, tampering with evidence, conspiracy to tamper with evidence, and two misdemeanor counts of the Michigan Safe Water Drinking Act.

The latest charges are related to a Legionnaires' disease outbreak in 2014 and 2015 in the Flint area that led to 12 deaths after the city's water supply had been switched to the Flint River in April 2014.

No charges are planned against Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, Schuette said. But his investigation is continuing.

"We have attempted to interview the governor, (but) we were not successful," Schuette said. Snyder, a Republican, has been the state's governor since 2011.

Health department officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

Lyon, 49, of Marshall, Mich., is accused of causing the death of Robert Skidmore on Dec. 13, 2015, by failing to alert the public about a foreseeable outbreak of Legionnaires' disease.

"Defendant Lyon was aware of Genesee County's Legionnaires' disease outbreak at least by Jan. 28, 2015, and did not notify the public until a year later," the charging documents allege.

Lyon "willfully disregarded the deadly nature of the Legionnaires' disease outbreak," according to charging document. He later is alleged to have said he "can't save everyone," and "everyone has to die of something."

All of the voluntary manslaughter charges are felonies that could mean a 15-year prison term and a $7,500 fine. Misconduct in office charges are punishable by up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

"People had information in their possession" about the Legionnaires' disease outbreak "and just failed to act," said Andrew Arena, Schuette's chief criminal investigator and the former FBI director in Detroit.

Calls to lawyers for Lyon were not immediately returned Wednesday.

Follow Paul Egan, John Wisely and Elisha Anderson on Twitter: @paulegan4, @Jwisely and @elishaanderson </s> Prosecutors have dropped all criminal charges against eight people in the Flint water crisis and pledged to start the investigation from scratch.

Michigan officials made the stunning announcement on Thursday, stating that 'all available evidence was not pursued' by the team of prosecutors initially tasked with investigating the widespread contamination of Flint's drinking water in 2014 and 2015.

The crisis is considered to be one of the worst man-made environmental disasters in US history. Intentionally-untreated Flint River water leached lead from pipes and into thousands of homes and businesses while cost-cutting financial managers were running the poverty-stricken city.

All eight defendants implicated in the previous investigation - including Michigan's former health director Nick Lyon - could - and likely will - be charged again.

Additional defendants could also face charges as Michigan Solicitor General Fadwa Hammoud indicated the new probe will be significantly more extensive.

Hammoud, who took control of the investigation in January, explained the decision to drop charges in a joint statement with Wayne County prosecutor Kym Worthy.

'This week, we completed the transfer into our possession millions of documents and hundreds of new electronic devices, significantly expanding the scope of our investigation,' the statement said.

'Our team's efforts have produced the most comprehensive body of evidence to date related to the Flint water crisis.

'We are now in the best possible position to find the answers the citizens of Flint deserve and hold all responsible parties accountable.'

Three years after the investigation began, no one is behind bars. Seven of 15 defendants have pleaded no contest to misdemeanors, and their records will eventually be scrubbed clean.

Charges were pending against eight people, including former Michigan chief medical executive Eden Wells and two men who were state-appointed emergency managers in Flint.

Lyon, who was head of the state health department until January, was charged with involuntary manslaughter and accused of failing to alert the public in a timely manner about an outbreak of Legionnaires' disease linked to the improperly-treated water.

The former director's lawyer, Chip Chamberlain, said he feels 'fantastic and vindicated' by the dismissal of charges.

Chamberlain acknowledged that Lyon could be charged again, but said he's confident the new probe 'will yield no evidence of any criminal wrongdoing'.

The crisis unfolded as Flint, a majority-black city of 100,000 where 41 percent of residents are living in poverty, was being run by financial managers appointed by the government due to poor finances.

They pulled water from the river without treating it to reduce corrosive effects on old pipes while waiting for a new pipeline to bring water from Lake Huron.

The uproar over water quality reached a peak by fall 2015 when a doctor reported high levels of lead in children, which can cause brain damage.

Some experts also have linked the water to Legionnaires' disease, a type of pneumonia caused by bacteria that thrive in warm water and infect the lungs. People can get sick if they inhale mist or vapor, typically from cooling systems.

The city's water no longer comes from the river and has significantly improved, but some residents are so distrustful that they continue to use bottled water.

Flint residents filed a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency in 2017. The suit, in part, claimed that the EPA failed to appropriately use its authority under the Safe Drinking Water act, neglecting to intervene, investigate and warn residents about the health risks attached to drinking and using the city's contaminated water, according to the Detroit News. The federal government tried to have the suit dismissed last year, claiming that the alleged misconduct was exempt from liability because it fell under the Federal Tort Claims Act's discretionary function exception. Federal Judge Linda Parker ruled in the plaintiff's favor in April, stating that the government isn't immune to the legal action. In her opinion Parker wrote: 'The EPA was well aware that the Flint River was highly corrosive and posed a significant danger of lead leaching out of the city’s lead-based service lines at alarming rates into residents’ homes.' 'The EPA was well aware of the health risks posed by lead exposure, particularly to children and pregnant women. … Further, the EPA knew that (the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality) and Flint officials were not warning Flint’s residents that they were being supplied lead-laced water.' The judge added that the EPA knew that Michigan regulators were misleading residents about the quality of the water and that the 'lies went on for months'.

Last month Hammoud and Worthy executed search warrants to seize state-owned mobile devices of former Republican Governor Rick Snyder from storage, along with tech from 65 other current or former officials.

'As stated in recent motions, the prosecution is aware of substantial potential evidence that was not provided to the original prosecution team from the onset of the investigation,' Hammoud said in a statement after the Associated Press reported on the warrants.

'The team is currently in the process of obtaining this evidence through a variety of means, including search warrants. The team is also conducting a thorough review of existing and newly received evidence pertaining to the Flint water crisis.'

One warrant, signed May 19, listed all content from Snyder's cellphone, iPad and computer hard drive.

Similar information was sought from the devices of 33 employees who worked in his office, 11 in the Department of Environmental Quality and 22 in the Department of Health and Human Services.

The evidence was apparently initially obtained by former special prosecutor Todd Flood with investigative subpoenas.

Because it has been kept in a division of the attorney general's office, Hammoud took the unusual step of securing a warrant to search another part of the office.

'We're doing everything we can to comply,' said Dan Olsen, a spokesman for Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel, who is not involved in the criminal investigation and is instead handling lawsuits against the state by Flint residents.

After succeeding former Republican Attorney General Bill Schuette this year, she appointed Hammoud to lead the probe.

A similar warrant was also issued to the Department of Technology, Management and Budget.

'The department is complying with the warrant. We cannot discuss the details further because it is part of pending litigation,' spokesman Caleb Buhs said.

A spokesman for the Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy - formerly the Department of Environmental Quality - confirmed it was served a warrant last week.

The warrants seek data from the devices of individuals who have been charged in the probe but also uncharged officials such as Snyder, former Environmental Quality director Dan Wyant and various people who worked in Snyder's office including Lt Gov Brian Calley, top aide Richard Baird and chief of staff Dick Posthumus.

Lawyers who have represented Snyder and his office could not immediately be reached for comment Monday. </s> (6/13/2019) - Will the people who caused the Flint water crisis ever see justice?

That is the question Flint's elected state officials asked hours after the Michigan Attorney General's Office dismissed all criminal charges against eight people, deciding instead to start over with a new investigation.

RELATED: Flint water prosecutors dismiss all charges, plan to start over after new investigation

State Rep. Sheldon Neeley, a Democrat, is disappointed about the millions of taxpayer dollars spent on attorneys and years of court litigation wasted by dropping the charges.

“We’ve been told to wait, to be patient, that justice was coming, but where is that justice today?" he said. "My city is losing faith in our government, and that distrust was justified today when it once again failed them so miserably."

Neeley said the Flint community has suffered greatly due to the water crisis and he demands justice for the people who caused it.

"I’m not going to rest until everyone involved is held accountable and justice is truly served," he said. "I and the residents of Flint truly hope the Attorney General’s office will finally join us in this fight.”

State Sen. Jim Ananich, also a Democrat, feels much the same way.

"The people of Flint believe that they will never see justice, and sadly, so far they’ve been proven right," he said. "I hope and expect that this will not be the case for much longer, but until then, I will continue to fight for my city and hold people accountable.”

Thursday's action means the following defendants are free of all charges filed against them:

-- Former Michigan Department of Health and Human Service Director Nick Lyon. He is the highest ranking official to face charges.

-- Former Michigan Chief Medical Executive Eden Wells.

-- Former Flint emergency managers Gerald Ambrose and Darnell Earley.

-- Michigan Department of Environmental Quality official Patrick Cook.

-- Former Flint Public Works Director Howard Croft.

-- Michigan Department of Health and Human Services officials Robert Scott and Nancy Peeler.

They had been charged with involuntary manslaughter, misconduct in office and willful neglect of duty. Lyon and Wells had their cases bound over to trial, although both were actively appealing those decisions.

All the charges against them were dismissed without prejudice, meaning prosecutors can file them again later -- and possibly add more counts. More people who weren't facing charges also could be implicated later.

Michigan Solicitor General Fadwa Hammoud and Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy, who are leading the Flint water criminal prosecutions under Attorney General Dana Nessel, are starting a new investigation from scratch.

They decided the investigative work done under former Attorney General Bill Schuette gave them "immediate and grave concerns" -- so bad that they couldn't move forward without re-launching the investigation.

Schuette appointed attorney Todd Flood as a special prosecutor, who oversaw the entire investigation until Schuette left office on Jan. 1. Hammoud and Worthy claim that Flood didn't pursue all the evidence, leaving them a "flawed foundation" on which to continue prosecuting the cases.

In a series of tweets on Thursday afternoon, Schuette defended his team's work and the charges they brought.

"During my tenure as Attorney General, the department initiated three major investigations: Nassar, the Catholic Church and the Flint Water Crisis. All three were staffed and conducted with the highest level of professionalism and expertise," he wrote.

Schuette believes Flood's investigative did well at pursuing justice for everyone affected by the Flint water crisis.

"We had an experienced, aggressive and hard-driving team," he wrote. "Everything we did was for the people of Flint."

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Flint Mayor Karen Weaver support the decision to start over, as long as that's the right course to get justice.

"We've been waiting for justice for quite some time and justice is what we deserve," she said. "For them to say we need to do a full investigation and not just take what was handed to them is a good thing."

Congressman Dan Kildee, a Democrat from Flint, just wants to see the people who caused the water crisis held accountable -- no matter how prosecutors have to get there.

“The Attorney General’s office should aggressively continue its investigations and pursue criminal charges, supported by the facts and evidence, against any individual criminally responsible," he said.

Attorney Trachelle Young represents thousands of clients in a civil lawsuit filed against the city, state and former Gov. Rick Snyder, among others. She's encouraged by the news that the prosecution team is dismissing all pending criminal cases and expanding their investigation based on new evidence.

"The net is going to be cast wider and it's going to a much stronger net, and maybe they'll catch the big fish rather than the guppies," Young said.

The decision to drop all criminal charges won't affect the civil litigation currently under way, she said, "but it doesn't hurt our civil case either." </s> June 13 (UPI) -- Michigan prosecutors dropped all criminal cases related to the Flint water crisis Thursday in order to give the attorney general's office more time to investigate.

Michigan Deputy Solicitor General Fadwa Hammoud said she and Wayne County prosecutor Kym Worthy found new evidence in the investigation into the crisis that left at least 12 people dead.

The office is dropping the manslaughter cases of Michigan Department of Health and Human Services Director Nick Lyon and form Chief Medical executive Eden Wells, as well as cases against six other state and city officials. Their cases could be reopened in the future.

The investigation into the cause and liabilities related to the Flint water crisis began under the tenure of former Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette, but Dana Nessel took over the office earlier this year.

Nessel appointed Hammoud and Worthy to review the criminal cases.

"I trust them and if this step is necessary for them to do a comprehensive and complete investigation," Nessel said, "I am in absolute support.

"I want to remind the people of Flint that justice delayed is not always justice denied and a fearless and dedicated team of career prosecutors and investigators are hard at work to ensure those who harmed you are held accountable."

The water crisis began April 25, 2014, when city officials switched Flint's water supply from treated Lake Huron and Detroit water to raw water from the Flint River, which was then treated at the Flint Water Treatment Plant. The new source wasn't sufficiently cleaned and lead leached from the city's old pipes into the water supply, poisoning about 100,000 Flint residents over a period of 17 months. At least 12 people died from Legionnaires' disease linked to the contaminated water, and the city faced dozens of lawsuits that accused officials of recklessness and negligence.

Marc Edwards, an environmental engineer professor at Virginia Tech who helped uncover the water contamination, testified before Congress in February 2016 that state and federal officials tried to cover up proof of high lead levels. He said Susan Herman, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's former Midwest chief, and Michigan's Department of Environmental Quality dismissed information about contaminants in the city's water system.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announces that charges will be dropped against eight people in the Flint water crisis and investigations will be restarted in the scandal, which has plagued the city since 2014.