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As if the Flint water crisis wasn’t embroiled in enough corruption, one of the leading activists involved in a lawsuit in connection to the crisis has been murdered.
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Sasha Avonna Bell was one of the first of a number of people to file a lawsuit after her child came down with lead poisoning.
Last week, Bell and her friend Sacorya Renee Reed were found shot dead in Bell's home. One person has been placed in custody but no charges have been filed.
Bell’s lawsuit was being used to determine how authorities would handle the future of several dozen lawsuits, specifically whether they would be transferred to a U.S. District Court against engineering company Lockwood, Andrews & Newnam or LAN. Ultimately the cases were not transferred, meaning they will now stay in state court rather than be be heard in federal court.
LAN is involved in several other lawsuits and also has ties to Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
Bell’s murder occurred just prior to the arrests of several Michigan officials. When it was announced last week that the Flint water crisis was to be investigated and prosecuted as a crime, the man responsible for running the city’s treatment plant and two state environmental officials were arrested and charged with misleading regulators about the poisoned water.
Last month, Governor Snyder, as well as a number of other state employees were also named as defendants in several lawsuits for poisoning thousands of Flint residents. In response, Snyder used around US$500,000 in taxpayer funds to hire attorneys to defend himself.
Bell’s murder isn’t the only death mired in this situation. Just a few days earlier, a foreman at the Flint water treatment plant, Matthew McFarland, mysteriously died in his home.
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