Black Cops Warned About Racist Capitol Police Officers For Years

More than 250 Black cops have sued the department since 2001. Some say it's no surprise white nationalists were able to storm the Capitol.

• Pro Publica, News Partner

Posted Thu, Jan 14, 2021 

Black officers who worked for the Capitol Police say that they believe no one took them seriously as they complained about racism in the department. (Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

By Joshua Kaplan and Joaquin Sapien/ProPublica

WASHINGTON, D.C. — When Kim Dine took over as the new chief of the U.S. Capitol Police in 2012, he knew he had a serious problem.

Since 2001, hundreds of Black officers had sued the department for racial discrimination. They alleged that white officers called Black colleagues slurs like the N-word and that one officer found a hangman's noose on his locker. White officers were called "huk lovers" or "FOGs" — short for "friends of gangsters" — if they were friendly with their Black colleagues. Black officers faced "unprovoked traffic stops" from fellow Capitol Police officers. One Black officer claimed he heard a colleague say, "Obama monkey, go back to Africa."

In case after case, agency lawyers denied wrongdoing. But in an interview, Dine said it was clear he had to address the department's charged racial climate. He said he promoted a Black officer to assistant chief, a first for the agency, and tried to increase diversity by changing the force's hiring practices. He also said he hired a Black woman to lead a diversity office and created a new disciplinary body within the department, promoting a Black woman to lead it.

"There is a problem with racism in this country, in pretty much every establishment that exists," said Dine, who left the agency in 2016. "You can always do more in retrospect."

Whether the Capitol Police managed to root out racist officers will be one of many issues raised as Congress investigates the agency's failure to prevent a mob of Trump supporters from attacking the Capitol while lawmakers inside voted to formalize the electoral victory of President-elect Joe Biden.

Already, officials have suspended several police officers for possible complicity with insurrectionists, one of whom was pictured waving a Confederate battle flag as he occupied the building. One cop was captured on tape seeming to take selfies with protesters, while another allegedly wore a red "Make America Great Again" hat as he directed protesters around the Capitol building. While many officers were filmed fighting off rioters, at least 12 others are under investigation for possibly assisting the

Two current Black Capitol Police officers told BuzzFeed News that they were angered by leadership failures that they said put them at risk as racist members of the mob stormed the building. The Capitol Police force is only 29% Black in a city that's 46% Black. By contrast, as of 2018, 52% of Washington Metropolitan police officers were Black. The Capitol Police are comparable to the Metropolitan force in spending, employing more than 2,300 people and boasting an annual budget of about a half-billion dollars.

The Capitol Police did not immediately respond to questions for this story.

Sharon Blackmon-Malloy, a former Capitol Police officer who was the lead plaintiff in the 2001 discrimination lawsuit filed against the department, said she was not surprised that pro-Trump rioters burst into the Capitol last week.

In her 25 years with the Capitol Police, Blackmon-Malloy spent decades trying to raise the alarm about what she saw as endemic racism within the force, even organizing demonstrations where Black officers would return to the Capitol off-duty, protesting outside the building they usually protect.

The 2001 case, which started with more than 250 plaintiffs, remains pending. As recently as 2016, a Black female officer filed a racial discrimination complaint against the department.

"Nothing ever really was resolved. Congress turned a blind eye to racism on the Hill," Blackmon-Malloy, who retired as a lieutenant in 2007, told ProPublica. She is now vice president of the U.S. Capitol Black Police Association, which held 16 demonstrations protesting alleged discrimination between 2013 and 2018. "We got Jan. 6 because no one took us seriously."

Retired Lt. Frank Adams sued the department in 2001 and again in 2012 for racial discrimination. A Black, 20-year veteran of the force, Adams supervised mostly white officers in the patrol division. He told ProPublica he endured or witnessed racism and sexism constantly. He said that before he joined the division, there was a policy he referred to as "meet and greet," where officers were directed to stop any Black person on the Hill. He also said that in another unit, he once found a cartoon on his desk of a Black man ascending to heaven only to be greeted by a Ku Klux Klan wizard. When he complained to his superior officers, he said he was denied promotions and training opportunities, and suffered other forms of retaliation.

In an interview, he drew a direct line between racism in the Capitol Police and the events that unfolded last week. He blamed Congress for not listening to Black members of the force years ago.

"They only become involved in oversight when it's in the news cycle," said Adams, who retired in 2011. "They ignored the racism happening in the department. They ignored the hate."

The department's record in other areas of policing have drawn criticism as well.

In 2015, a man landed a gyrocopter on the Capitol lawn — top officials didn't know the airborne activist was coming until minutes before he touched down. In 2013, when a lone gunman opened fire at the nearby Navy Yard, killing 12 people, the Capitol Police were criticized for standing on the sidelines. The force's leadership board later determined its actions were justified.

Last month, days after a bloody clash on Dec. 12 between militant Trump supporters and counterprotesters, Melissa Byrne and Chibundu Nnake were entering the Capitol when they saw a strangely dressed man just outside the building, carrying a spear.

He was a figure they would come to recognize — Jacob Chansley, the QAnon follower in a Viking outfit who was photographed last week shouting from the dais of the Senate chamber.

They alerted the Capitol Police at the time, as the spear seemed to violate the complex's weapons ban, but officers dismissed their concern, they said.

One officer told them that Chansley had been stopped earlier in the day, but that police "higher ups" had decided not to do anything about him.

We don't "perceive it as a weapon," Nnake recalled the officer saying of the spear.

Chansley told the Globe and Mail's Adrian Morrow that Capitol Police had allowed him in the building on Jan. 6, which would normally include passing through a metal detector, although he was later charged with entering a restricted building without lawful authority, violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds. As of Tuesday, he had not yet entered a plea.

For Byrne and Nnake, their interactions with the "QAnon Shaman" on Dec. 14 highlighted what they perceive as double standards in how the Capitol Police interact with the public.

Like many people who regularly encounter the force, Nnake and Byrne said they were accustomed to Capitol officers enforcing rules aggressively — later that day, Nnake was told that he would be tackled if he tried to advance beyond a certain point. "As a Black man, when I worked on the Hill, if I forgot a badge, I couldn't get access anywhere," he told ProPublica.

Congress, which controls the agency and its budget, has a mixed record of oversight. For the most part, Congress has been deferential toward the force, paying attention to its workings only after serious security failures, and even then, failing to meaningfully hold its leaders accountable.

Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat from D.C. who is a nonvoting member of Congress, told ProPublica she believes a national commission should be formed to investigate what occurred at the Capitol on Jan. 6, similar to what followed 9/11.

"Congress deserves some of the blame," she told ProPublica. "We have complete control over the Capitol Police. ... Long-term concerns with security have been raised, and they've not been dealt with in the past."

The force has also suffered a spate of recent, internal scandals that may prove pertinent as Congress conducts its investigation.

Capitol Police officers accidently left several guns in bathrooms throughout the building in 2015 and 2019; in one instance, the loaded firearm was discovered by a small child.

The agency has been criticized for a lack of transparency for years. Capitol Police communications and documents are not subject to the Freedom of Information Act and, unlike many local law enforcement agencies, it has no external watchdog specifically assigned to investigate and respond to community complaints. The force has not formally addressed the public since the riot last week.

"All law enforcement is opaque," said Jonathan M. Smith, executive director of the Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs. "At least most local police departments are subject to some kind of civilian oversight, but federal police agencies are left to operate in the shadows."

The agency's past troubles have rarely resulted in reform, critics said.

After the April 2015 gyrocopter incident, Congress held a hearing to examine how 61-year-old postal worker and activist Doug Hughes managed to land his aircraft after he livestreamed his flight. Dozens of reporters and news cameras assembled in front of the Capitol to watch the stunt, which was designed to draw attention to the influence of money in politics. Capitol Police did not learn of the incoming flight until a reporter reached out to them for comment, minutes before Hughes landed.

Dine defended the force's response to the incident, pointing out that Hughes was promptly arrested and no one was hurt.

Former Rep. Jason Chaffetz, a Republican from Utah, then the chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, harshly criticized the department and other federal agencies for what he perceived as an intelligence failure.

"The Capitol Police is terrible and pathetic when it comes to threat assessment," Chaffetz told ProPublica in an interview. "They have a couple people dedicated to it, but they're overwhelmed. Which drives me nuts. ... It's not been a priority for leadership, on both sides of the aisle." He said he is not aware of any serious changes to the force's intelligence gathering following the debacle.

Norton, who also pressed Dine at the hearing, told ProPublica the intelligence lapses surrounding the gyrocopter landing should be considered a "forerunner" to last week's riot.

"For weeks, these people had been talking about coming to the Capitol to do as much harm as they can," Norton said. "Everyone knew it. Except the Capitol Police." Reports show the force had no contingency plan to deal with an escalation of violence and mayhem at last week's rally, even though the FBI and the New York Police Department had warned them it could happen.

Law enforcement experts said that the agency is in a difficult position. While it has sole responsibility for protecting the Capitol, it must work with other nearby federal law enforcement agencies, Washington's Metropolitan Police and the National Guard in case of emergencies.

In an interview, Nick Zotos, a former D.C. National Guard commander who now works for the Department of Homeland Security, said that the roughly two dozen agencies responsible for public safety in Washington can cause territorial disputes, finger-pointing and poor communication.

"This is not a D.C. thing, necessarily, although it's probably the worst in D.C.," Zotos said. "Police departments just don't play with each other nicely."

Blackmon-Malloy told ProPublica that divisions within the Capitol Police could be just as dangerous, not only for Congress but for Black officers themselves. "Now you got to go to work on the 20th," she told ProPublica, alluding to the inauguration. "And stand next to someone who you don't even know if they have your back."

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Was the Capitol Hill Attack an Inside Job?

Republican members of Congress have been accused of coordinating with riot organizers

Andrea González-Ramírez

Rep. Paul Gosar and Sen. Ted Cruz are applauded by Republican members of Congress after they objected to the certification of the electoral votes for Arizona. Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images

Speaking live to her Facebook followers on Tuesday evening, New Jersey Rep. Mikie Sherrill made a stunning allegation: On January 5, the day before the U.S. Capitol was stormed by insurrectionists, she had witnessed members of Congress giving groups of people what she called “reconnaissance” tours of the building, which has been closed to the public since March on account of Covid-19. “I’m going to see they are held accountable,” Sherrill, a U.S. Navy veteran, said, “and if necessary, ensure that they don’t serve in Congress.” On Wednesday, she and 33 other lawmakers sent a letter to the head of U.S. Capitol Police, as well as the sergeant-at-arms of the House and Senate, requesting whatever information — from visitor logs to video footage — they have on the tours.

Sherrill didn’t say on her livestream which colleagues engaged in these activities, nor did she offer additional evidence. But her claims tapped into a question that has been on everyone’s minds since the attacks of January 6: Did the insurrectionists have inside help?

I Still Can’t Get Over How Everyone Just Posted Their Crimes

My mother warned me that posting is always a Bad Idea

gen.medium.com


There are signs pointing to that possibility. In a now-deleted video on Periscope, Ali Alexander, a right-wing activist and felon behind the “Stop the Steal” conspiracy theory movement and the “Save America” rally on January 6, said he and three GOP congressmen — Arizona Reps. Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar, and Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama — came together to make a plan for the day Congress was set to certify Joe Biden’s electoral victory. “We four schemed up putting maximum pressure on Congress while they were voting,” Alexander said. Their plan was meant to “change the hearts and the minds of Republicans who were in that body, hearing our loud roar from outside.”

And despite Capitol Police asking members not to share their locations during the siege as a security measure, newly-elected GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert, who has ties to Arizona militia and a record of being arrested for “petty crimes,” live-tweeted the moment House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was removed from the chamber, which critics say put her in danger. Earlier in the day, Boebert had tweeted, “1776,” the rallying cry for insurrectionists who saw the attack on the Capitol as the start of a new American revolution.

They had either studied maps or obtained inside intelligence to help them navigate the labyrinthine Capitol.

New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said on an Instagram Live video on Tuesday that she feared for her life during the attack, in part because of who else was going to be in the room where lawmakers were being held for their safety. “There were QAnon and white supremacist sympathizers, and frankly white supremacist members of Congress, in that extraction point who I have felt would disclose my location and would create opportunities to allow me to be hurt, kidnapped, et cetera,” Ocasio-Cortez said, without specifying who was referring to. Sarah Groh, the chief of staff for fellow Squad member Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, said that after her team barricaded themselves in the congresswoman’s office during the siege, they discovered the office’s panic buttons had all been ripped out. Pressley’s team said they had been able to use them during past incidents, and had no idea when or why they had been removed.

Rioters were also able to locate the unmarked office of House majority whip Jim Clyburn, which suggests they had either studied maps or obtained inside intelligence to help them navigate the labyrinthine Capitol, a task that can be difficult even for longtime members and staffers who know the building inside and out. “Somebody must get to the bottom of how they, with such efficiency and such alacrity, moved themselves in mobs into Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office. Into the whip’s third-floor office,” Pennsylvania Rep. Madeleine Dean told Politico. “We all joke about the fact that it’s so hard to find some of these offices, and we work in the building,”

And then there’s the matter of how Capitol Police behaved during the siege. While some officers bravely attempted to defend the building, others were seen taking selfies with the insurrectionists, wearing MAGA hats, and giving rioters directions. As a result, two officers were suspended and at least 10 more are currently under investigation. Anonymous Capitol Police officers even told BuzzFeed News that they feared some of their colleagues were sympathetic to the white supremacists storming the complex. According to Reuters, “off-duty police… firefighters, state lawmakers… and at least one active-duty military officer” were among the mob at the Capitol.

The siege is currently being investigated by law enforcement, and the FBI says the evidence they’ve so far gathered is just “the tip of the iceberg.” It’ll be a while before we know if insurrectionists had any inside help, but the signs we’ve seen so far paint a terrifying picture.


WRITTEN BY

Andrea González-Ramírez
Senior Staff Writer, GEN by Medium. Puertorriqueña. Previously: Refinery29, El Diario Nueva York, Diálogo, and more. Tips: andrea@medium.com

Behavioral traits converge for humans and animals sharing an environment

AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE

Research News

 

Humans, mammals and birds that live in a particular environment share a common set of behavioral traits, according to a new study, which identifies a local convergence of foraging, reproductive and social behaviors across species. The findings, based on studying more than 300 small-scale human hunter-gatherer populations, support one of the central tenets of human behavioral ecology - that ecological forces select for various behaviors in distinct environments, driving behavioral diversity worldwide. The origin and evolution of human behavior are uncertain and debated. While some suggest that humans' unique and equally diverse cultural belief systems are the source of behavioral variation, others argue it is more a product of adaptation to local ecological conditions, which may influence behaviors in similar ways across species. Toman Barsbai and colleagues address these questions by comparing an ethnographic database encompassing 339 small human hunter-gatherer populations worldwide with the behavioral traits of their non-human neighbors to evaluate the behavioral similarity across species living together in a common locale. The analysis revealed that human foragers, mammal and bird species show high levels of similarity across various behavioral traits, including diet composition, child-care duties and community organization. For example, in places where hunter-gatherer populations have social classes, more birds and mammals exhibit notable social hierarchies. According to Barsbai et al., this convergence appears to result from pressures of the local environment and indicate that environmental conditions may play an important role in shaping the behaviors of humans and other animals in similar ways. "Barsbai et al. show convincingly that ecological factors explain much variation in human behavior, but so too does cultural history," write Kim Hall and Robert Boyd in an accompanying Perspective, noting that it is a mistake to understate the deeply entwined role of culture on behavior. "So far, we do not have a complete theory that predicts when culture will override fitness maximizing ecological adaption and vice versa," say Hall and Boyd. "That will be the challenge for the next generation of social scientists as we move beyond an 'either/or' view and toward a fully integrated evolutionary theory of human behavior."

###

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

UK Government launches legal bid to ban former Carillion directors

THEY OPERATED IN CANADA TOO

Abigail Townsend Sharecast News
14 Jan, 2021 


The government has launched legal proceedings against the former directors of Carillion, the collapsed outsourcing giant.

The newly-appointed business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, is seeking to ban the eight directors from holding senior boardroom roles for up to 15 years.

They include former chair Philip Green; Richard Howson, who was chief executive for six years until leaving in 2017; and Keith Cochrane, a non-executive director who replaced Howson.

Two former finance directors - Richard Adam and Zafar Khan - are also named, along with non-executives Alison Horner, Andrew Dougal and Ceri Powell.

In a statement, the government’s Insolvency Service, which handles corporate collapses, said: "We can confirm that on 12 January, the Secretary of State issued company director disqualification proceedings in the public interest against eight directors and former directors of Carillion."

Carillion collapsed into administration three years ago this month, with the loss of around 3,000 jobs and debts of £1.5bn. One of the UK’s biggest corporate failures, it had more than 400 public sector contracts at the time of its collapse and employed more than 19,000 people.

A subsequent joint report by two parliamentary committees called Carillion’s business model a "relentless dash for cash".

The Financial Reporting Council is investigating Adam and Khan, alongside a probe into the auditing services provided by KPMG.

Unite, the Britain’s largest union, welcomed the move. Assistant general secretary Gail Cartmail said: "Carillion’s collapse was not a victimless, white-collar crime, as thousands of workers lost their jobs. If executives and directors had reported honestly on Carillion’s financial predicament, many of those job losses could have been avoided."

Ex-Gov. Rick Snyder pleads not guilty as nine face charges in Flint water crisis

Joe GuillenChristine MacDonaldJennifer Dixon
Detroit Free Press



(Note: Snyder hearing, above, begins at the 27:15 mark in the video)

The criminal investigation into the Flint water crisis burst open in historic fashion on Thursday as Attorney General Dana Nessel’s Office detailed sweeping new indictments against former Gov. Rick Snyder, members of his inner circle and others for their roles in the environmental catastrophe.

The charges include felony charges of obstruction of justice and extortion against Snyder’s former top aide, Richard Baird, and nine counts of involuntary manslaughter each against two former state health officials.

In all, nine people — most of them former government officials — were charged with a total of 42 counts as part of the criminal investigation into the 2014 disastrous switch by a cash-strapped Flint to use its river as its new water supply, which resulted in widespread lead contamination. They were arraigned Thursday morning and have been released after entering not guilty pleas and posting bond, according to court proceedings and the Genesee County Sheriff’s Office.

Snyder appeared in a Flint court Thursday morning and pleaded not guilty to two charges of willful neglect of duty, a misdemeanor.

Despite the lower-level charges compared with other defendants, the case against Snyder marked a significant moment in the state's political history. Snyder is the first Michigan governor or former governor to be charged for alleged criminal conduct while in office.

Supporters of the former Republican governor and his aides decried the prosecution as a reckless overreach fueled by partisanship.

But Snyder's critics say it was he who should have acted sooner when he knew or should have known there was something terribly wrong with the water Flint residents were drinking. Further, it was he who pushed for Michigan's emergency manager law and appointed the Flint overseers who managed the switch of the city's water supply to the Flint River. And it is Snyder, they say, who has given ambiguous and sometimes conflicting accounts about what he knew and when he knew it.

On Thursday, Nessel praised the high-wire prosecutions into the contamination of Flint's drinking water supply led by her Office's Solicitor General Fadwa Hammoud, as well as Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy. Nessel had said earlier that she had walled herself off from the criminal cases, turning her focus instead to ongoing civil cases related to the contamination of Flint's drinking water beginning more than six years ago.

“Solicitor General Hammoud and Prosecutor Worthy’s track records demonstrate their commitment to public service as experienced prosecutors, which is why I appointed them to lead the criminal investigation in the Flint water crisis,” Nessel said in a statement Thursday around noontime. “I trust today’s announcement reflects their professional responsibilities and ethical obligations as the prosecuting authorities in this matter, and that their decisions are based solely on the facts, the law and the evidence.”

The evidence was reviewed by Genesee County Circuit Court Judge David Newblatt, who was appointed as a one-man grand juror to investigate crimes related to the crisis. The indictments followed a year's worth of grand jury proceedings.

The totality of the Flint water catastrophe may never be known, but the failures of public officials who "evaded accountability for far too long" continue to reverberate throughout the community, Hammoud said.

“When an entire city is victimized by the negligence and indifference of those in power, it deserves an uncompromising investigation that holds to account anyone who is criminally culpable. That is what all citizens in this state are entitled to regardless of their ZIP code," Hammoud said at a news conference Thursday.

"Let me be clear, there are no velvet ropes in our criminal justice system. Nobody, no matter how powerful or well-connected is above accountability when they commit a crime," she said.

Years ago, the office of the state's previous attorney general, Bill Schuette, pursued criminal charges against a number of the same defendants charged this week. But in June 2019, Nessel, the newly elected Democrat, upended that effort when her office dismissing all pending criminal charges, saying the initial Flint investigation had been bungled and opting instead to launch a new and expanded probe.

Her actions this week led to charges for the first time against Snyder.

In a remote court appearance Thursday morning whose social distance was necessitated by the novel coronavirus pandemic, Snyder, 62, wore a navy blazer, a light blue collared shirt without a necktie and a gray face mask. He was seated next to his attorney, Brian Lennon, in a Genesee County jail booth as they appeared for the hearing via Zoom. In a separate courtroom, connected by a computer link, a judge presided.

Snyder spoke sparingly during the hearing. His only words were “yes, your honor” in response to the judge’s question of whether he lives in the state. Snyder did not say which city or town.

During Snyder’s arraignment before Genesee District Judge Christopher Odette, Nessel's office sought to restrict Snyder's travel during the case by surrendering his passport because Snyder is a "man of means" with international contacts.

But Odette only ordered Snyder not to leave the state without the court's permission.

"I'm not going to have him surrender his passport on a misdemeanor charge," Odette said.

Odette also set a personal recognizance bond of $10,000 on each charge for Snyder. The former governor walked out of the county sheriff's office after the remote hearing but did not comment to awaiting reporters and photographers.

“The two misdemeanor charges filed today against former Gov. Rick Snyder are wholly without merit and this entire situation is puzzling,” Lennon, Snyder's attorney and partner at Warner Norcross + Judd, said in a statement after the hearing Thursday.

Nessel filed charges against Snyder and at least one other defendant quietly on Wednesday before holding a news conference with her lead prosecutors on Thursday morning.

Genesee County District Court records show the charges against Snyder stem from an alleged offense on April 25, 2014 — the day Flint began using the Flint River as its new water source.

Bacteria in the contaminated water was also blamed for an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease. Authorities counted at least 90 cases in Genesee County, including 12 deaths. Legionnaires' disease is a severe form of pneumonia and often caught by inhaling the related bacteria from water.

The outbreak was announced by Snyder and his health department director in January 2016, even though some inside the administration later said they knew that cases had been discovered much earlier.

Each charge Snyder faces is a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in prison or a fine of up to $1,000.

Prosecutors have rarely moved against the state's chief executives in or out of office. In 1975, former Democratic Gov. John Swainson was indicted for bribery while a member of the Michigan Supreme Court. Swainson, who was Michigan governor in 1961 and 1962, was later acquitted of the bribery charge but convicted of perjury. He died in 1994.

New charges in the Flint criminal case mark a dramatic escalation of the prosecution alleging criminal negligence. Some legal and public policy experts said the charges against Snyder were appropriate while expressing concern that the indictments could have some unintended consequences.

Paul Mohai, a professor at the University of Michigan’s School for Environment and Sustainability, said the charges against Snyder and the other officials are a step in the right direction toward environmental justice for the people of Flint. The city’s switch to the Flint River as its source of drinking water had disastrous consequences and “people should be held accountable for that,” Mohai said

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Compounding the anger of the people of Flint, according to Mohai, were the state officials who chose to deny the problem and dismiss the evidence coming from the majority-Black city for more than a year.

Sara Hughes, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan’s School for Environment and Sustainability who studies urban policy, said that there is concern that the indictments could result in tightened governmental immunity protections and prompt public officials to “circle the wagons.”

“That would be a terrible outcome from this,” Hughes said. Instead, she hopes the case leads to politicians being held to a “higher standard” based on the public’s values.

Snyder, a Republican who has been out of office for two years, was governor when state-appointed managers in Flint switched the city’s water to the Flint River in 2014 as a cost-saving step while a pipeline was being built to Lake Huron. The water, however, was not treated to reduce corrosion — a disastrous decision affirmed by state regulators that caused lead to leach from old pipes and poison the distribution system used by nearly 100,000 residents.

Residents complained about discolored and foul-smelling water for over a year before the state acknowledged the problem. Flint switched back to Detroit water in October 2015, but the risk remained because of damage to the city's water infrastructure.

The prosecution also widened Thursday to include more serious charges against two of Snyder's former top aides as well as his former health department director.

Baird, a top aide to Snyder, has now been charged with four felonies, including extortion and obstruction of justice. He pleaded not guilty before Genesee Circuit Judge Elizabeth Kelly on Thursday  

.

According to his indictment, Baird, 64, was charged with perjury for making a false statement during an interview with the attorney general’s office on March 1, 2017. The obstruction of justice charge stems from an alleged attempt to influence or interfere with the water crisis legal proceedings. Baird’s extortion charge is related to an alleged threat to a leader of the state-appointed Flint Area Community Health and Environmental Partnership during the organization’s investigation into the source of the Legionnaires’ disease outbreak associated with the contaminated water.

Baird’s attorney Randall Levine said in a statement after the arraignment that the accusations are baseless and politically motivated.

“Mr. Baird is innocent of any wrongdoing and is being unfairly prosecuted by the state’s Democratic attorney general,” Levine said.

Kelly ordered Baird to surrender his passport, although he is allowed to travel for work between Michigan and Illinois, where he lives in Chicago. Baird is a member of the board of regents at Eastern Michigan University, according to Levine.

“The people of Flint are justifiably upset and angry about what happened in Flint,” Levine said. “Their government failed them at so many levels. However, the evidence will show that Rich Baird is not responsible for what occurred to the folks in the town where he grew up. I expect that he will be vindicated.”

Another member of Snyder's inner circle, Jarrod Agen, the governor's former communications director and chief of staff, was also among the newly charged, with one count of perjury during an investigative subpoena examination, a felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

Through his attorney, Agen, 43, entered a plea of not guilty.

After working for Snyder, Agen became Vice President Mike Pence’s communications director and is now a spokesman for Lockheed Martin, a defense contractor. Agen’s attorney J. Benjamin Dolan did not immediately return a call for comment.

Former health department director Nick Lyon, 52, was also charged again Thursday morning with nine counts of involuntary manslaughter, a felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison. He also faces a misdemeanor charge of willful neglect of duty. He pleaded not guilty to all charges.

The manslaughter charges Lyon faces, according to his indictment, are for causing the deaths of nine people through the “grossly negligent failure” to protect the health of Michigan citizens

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The judge set a $200,000 cash surety bond for Lyon on all the charges. His lawyer Charles Chamberlain said his client is innocent and called it a “dangerous day for state employees”

“Our hearts go out to Flint citizens who have endured the fallout from that decision,” Chamberlain said in a written statement. “But it does not help the people of Flint — or our criminal justice system — for the State to charge innocent people with crimes.”

“He did not make the decision to switch the water supply and had nothing to do with handling the water. Everything he did as director of the Michigan Department of Health & Human Services (MDHHS) he did based on the advice of highly trained epidemiologists and public health scientists and experts who themselves were looking at the science and following the data. It’s apparent that once again, the Attorney General has ignored the facts and the evidence.”

Also charged with nine felony counts of involuntary manslaughter was Dr. Eden Wells, 58, the state's former chief medical executive. She was also charged with two felony counts of misconduct in office and a misdemeanor charge of willful neglect of duty. The potential penalty for each charge is: up to 15 years in prison on the involuntary manslaughter charges, up to five years in prison on the misconduct in office charges and up to one year in prison on the misdemeanor

During her court hearing Thursday in Flint, she asked the court to enter a not guilty plea. The judge allowed her to continue to live in Maine while she faces the charges.

There were others accused of related crimes, too: former Flint Department of Public Works Director Howard Croft; two former Flint emergency managers, Darnell Earley and Gerald Ambrose, and Nancy Peeler, a manager in the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services’ early childhood health section.

Several of those charged Thursday had also been charged in the state’s first effort to prosecute those responsible.

Lyon was charged previously with one count of involuntary manslaughter. Wells was charged with obstruction of justice and lying to a police officer. Earley was charged with false pretenses and conspiracy, both 20-year felonies, and other charges. Ambrose was charged with false pretenses, conspiracy, misconduct in office and willful neglect of duty. Croft was charged with conspiracy and false pretenses.

The latest charges revealed on Thursday have been expected for days, but Nessel's Office refused to provide any information about the charges until Thursday. Wayne County Prosecutor Worthy said the state's grand jury laws require such secrecy.

Worthy said any suggestion that the attorney general's office withheld information is disingenuous.

"Had we disclosed this information from the grand jury in violation of these secrecy provisions that I’ve outlined, it would not only perhaps jeopardized our investigation but it would’ve been a crime," Worthy said.

It is unclear how much the years-long investigation has cost so far.

"We never put a dollar value on this investigation," Hammoud said.


Some community and religious leaders welcomed the news about the revived prosecutions in the Flint water case, especially charges brought against the former governor.

"Snyder did not protect and serve the people. He did not look out for our well-being, and for that he should be held accountable," Bishop Bernadel Jefferson of the Faith Deliverance Center in Flint said in a statement.

Eileen Hayes, executive director of Michigan Faith in Action, called Nessel's expanded prosecutions "a step in the right direction."

"It felt as though the governor was getting off scot-free and that other players who were also bad actors were getting away with it too. The idea that now, something is going to happen — there is some solace in that," Hayes said in a statement.

Flint Mayor Sheldon Neeley said in a statement that the new charges confirm there were multiple levels of wrongdoing to the community.

“The Flint community has waited nearly seven years for these steps toward justice,” Neeley said.
Summary of defendants and charges:

All nine defendants arraigned Thursday morning have been released after posting bond, according to the Genesee County Sheriff’s Office.

Jarrod Agen – former Director of Communications and former Chief of Staff, Executive Office of Gov. Rick Snyder; one count of perjury – a 15-year felony

Gerald Ambrose – former City of Flint Emergency Manager; four counts of misconduct in office – each a five-year felony and/or $10,000 fine

Richard Baird – former Transformation Manager and Senior Adviser, Executive Office of Gov. Snyder; one count of perjury – a 15-year felony; one count of official misconduct in office – a five-year felony and/or $10,000 fine; one count of obstruction of justice – a five-year felony and/or $10,000 fine; and one count of extortion – a 20-year felony and/or $10,000 fine

Howard Croft – former Director of the City of Flint Department of Public Works; two counts of willful neglect of duty – each a one-year misdemeanor and/or $1,000 fine

Darnell Earley – former City of Flint Emergency Manager; three counts of misconduct in office – each a five-year felony and/or $10,000 fine

Nicolas Lyon – former Director, Michigan Department of Health and Human Services; nine counts of involuntary manslaughter – each a 15-year felony and/or $7,500 fine; and one count of willful neglect of duty – a one-year misdemeanor and/or $1,000 fine

Nancy Peeler – Early Childhood Health Section Manager, Michigan Department of Health and Human Services; two counts of misconduct in office – each a five-year felony and/or $10,000 fine; and one count of willful neglect of duty – a one-year misdemeanor and/or $1,000 fine

Richard Snyder – former Governor of Michigan; two counts of willful neglect of duty – each a one-year misdemeanor and/or $1,000 fine

Eden Wells – former Chief Medical Executive, Michigan Department of Health and Human Services; nine counts of involuntary manslaughter – each a 15-year felony and/or $7,500 fine; two counts of misconduct in office – each a five-year felony and/or $10,000 fine; and one count of willful neglect of duty – a one-year misdemeanor and/or $1,000 fine

Staff writer Paul Egan contributed to this

Low cost chlorine dispensing device improves tap water safety in low-resource regions

Engineers invent device that requires no electricity or moving parts, lets users collect water as they usually do

TUFTS UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

IMAGE: THE CHLORINE TREATMENT DEVICE REQUIRES LITTLE MAINTENANCE AND NO CHANGE IN COLLECTION OF WATER FROM THE TAP view more 

CREDIT: AMY PICKERING

MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE (January 14, 2021) - A team of researchers led by engineers at Tufts University's School of Engineering and Stanford University's Program on Water, Health and Development have developed a novel and inexpensive chlorine dispensing device that can improve the safety of drinking water in regions of the world that lack financial resources and adequate infrastructure. With no moving parts, no need for electricity, and little need for maintenance, the device releases measured quantities of chlorine into the water just before it exits the tap. It provides a quick and easy way to eliminate water-borne pathogens and reduce the spread of high mortality diseases such as cholera, typhoid fever and diarrhea.

According to the CDC, more than 1.6 million people die from diarrheal diseases every year and half of those are children. The authors suggest that the solution to this problem could be relatively simple.

In communities and regions that do not have the resources to build water treatment plants and distribution infrastructure, the researchers found that the device can provide an effective, alternative means of water treatment at the point of collection. The device was installed and tested at several water collection stations, or kiosks, across rural areas in Kenya.

The study, which also looks at the economic feasibility and local demand for the system, was published today in the journal NPJ Clean Water.

"The idea we pursued was to minimize the user burden by automating water treatment at the point of collection," said Amy J. Pickering, former professor of civil and environmental engineering at Tufts (now at Stanford) and corresponding author of the study. "Clean water is central to improving human health and alleviating poverty. Our goal was to design a chlorine doser that could fit onto any tap, allowing for wide-scale implementation and increasing accessibility to a higher-level of safe water service."

Water is a simple substance, but a complex global health issue in both its availability and quality. Although it has long been a focus of the World Health Organization and other NGO's, 2.1 billion people still lack access to safe water at home (WHO). In areas of the world where finances and infrastructure are scarce, water may be delivered to communities by pipe, boreholes or tube wells, dug wells, and springs. Unfortunately, 29 percent of the global population uses a source that fails to meet the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) criteria for safely managed water - accessible and available when needed, and free from fecal and chemical contamination. In many places, access to safe water is out of reach due to the lack of available funds to create and support water treatment facilities.

The device works on the principle of a physical phenomenon in fluid dynamics called the Venturi effect, in which a non-compressible fluid flows at a faster rate when it runs from a wider to a narrower passage. In the device, the water passes through a so-called pinch valve. The fast-moving water stream draws in chlorine from a tube attached to the pinch valve. A needle valve controls the rate and thus amount of chlorine flowing into the water stream. The simple design could allow the device to be manufactured for $35 USD at scale.

"Rather than just assume we made something that was easier to use, we conducted user surveys and tracked the performance of the devices over time," said study co-author Jenna Davis, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford, director of Stanford's Program on Water, Health and Development, and co-PI of the Lotus Water project. This research is an extension of Lotus Water, which aims to provide reliable and affordable disinfection services for communities most at risk of waterborne illness.

A six-month evaluation in Kenya revealed stable operation of six of seven installed devices; one malfunctioned due to accumulation of iron deposits, a problem likely solvable with a pre-filter. Six of the seven sites were able to maintain payment for and upkeep of the device, and 86.2 percent of 167 samples taken from the devices throughout the period showed chlorine above the WHO recommended minimum level to ensure safe water, and below a threshold determined for acceptable taste. Technical adjustments were required in less than 5 percent of visits by managers of the kiosks. In a survey, more than 90 percent of users said they were satisfied with the quality of the water and operation of the device.

"Other devices and methods have been used to treat water at the point of collection," said Julie Powers, PhD student at Tufts School of Engineering and first author of the study. "but the Venturi has several advantages. Perhaps most importantly, it doesn't change the way people collect their water or how long it takes - there's no need for users to determine the correct dosing or spend extra time- just turn on the tap. Our hope is the low cost and high convenience will encourage widespread adoption that can lead to improved public health."

Future work examining the effect of the in-line chlorination device on diarrhea, enteric infections, and child mortality could further catalyze investment and scaling up this technology, said Powers.

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Funding for the development of the device and the study was provided by the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University and the Stanford Institute for Innovation in Developing Economies.

Powers, J.E., McMurry, C., Gannon, S., Drolet, A., Oremo, J., Klein, L., Crider, Y., Davis, J., and Pickering, A.J. "Design, technical performance and demand for a novel in-line Venturi chlorine doser to increase access to safe drinking water in low-income settings." NPJ Clean Water. 18 Decenber 2020; DOI: 10.1038/s41545-020-00091-1

About Tufts University

Tufts University, located on campuses in Boston, Medford/Somerville and Grafton, Massachusetts, and in Talloires, France, is recognized among the premier research universities in the United States. Tufts enjoys a global reputation for academic excellence and for the preparation of students as leaders in a wide range of professions. A growing number of innovative teaching and research initiatives span all Tufts campuses, and collaboration among the faculty and students in the undergraduate, graduate and professional programs across the university's schools is widely encouraged.

Water and gender equality

Stanford researchers find installing piped water near homes promotes gender equality and improves well-being in rural Zambia

STANFORD UNIVERSITY

Research News

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IMAGE: ZAMBIAN WOMAN WATERING THE FAMILY GARDEN FROM A NEWLY INSTALLED HOUSEHOLD TAP. view more 

CREDIT: JAMES WINTER

Water isn't just crucial for life, it's fundamental to increasing opportunities for women and girls in rural areas across the globe. A new Stanford study reveals how bringing piped water closer to remote households in Zambia dramatically improves the lives of women and girls, while also improving economic opportunities, food security and well-being for entire households. The research, recently published in Social Science & Medicine, could spur governments and NGOs to more carefully evaluate the costs and benefits of piped water as an alternative to less accessible communal water sources.

"Switching from the village borehole to piped supply saved almost 200 hours of fetching time per year for a typical household," said study senior author Jenna Davis, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford and director of Stanford's Program on Water, Health and Development. "This is a substantial benefit, most of which accrued to women and girls."

Globally, about 844 million people live without safe, accessible water for drinking, cooking, cleaning, hygiene and food production - the linchpin of healthy, prosperous communities. Just 12 percent of the rural population in sub-Saharan Africa has water piped to their home. Instead, families collect water from distant, shared sources, with women and girls overwhelmingly responsible for performing the time-consuming and arduous chore of carrying containers that average about 40 pounds each. Dedicating a large chunk of their day to water fetching takes time away from activities such as childcare, housework, hygiene, outside employment, education and leisure.

"Addressing this problem provides the time and water for women and girls to invest in their household's health and economic development, in whatever way they see fit," said lead author James Winter, who recently defended his PhD in civil and environmental engineering at Stanford.

Over the past several decades, national governments and international aid groups have spent hundreds of millions of dollars installing basic water sources, such as wells and handpumps. However, many of these sources are still far from users' homes, resulting in long journeys to fetch water. Previous studies have shown water fetching can harm both mental and physical well-being, while piped water at home can increase water for hygiene and livelihoods, improve food production and decrease infectious disease prevalence.

Yet despite this finding, piped water installations in sub-Saharan Africa have increased by a mere 2 percentage points since 2007. Investing resources into high-quality piped water sources that are dramatically closer to rural households could thus be a more effective route to providing safe, accessible and affordable drinking water for all.

For their study, the researchers examined less frequently measured aspects of well-being - including time savings, economic opportunity and nutritional security - that can be gained through increased access to reliable, easily accessible water. To do this, the team followed four rural villages within Zambia's southern province that had similar populations and access to school, markets and health care facilities. Halfway through the study, two of the villages received piped water to their yard, reducing the distance of their water source to just 15 meters.

Each village was surveyed at the beginning, middle and end of the study, with a team of Zambian interviewers conducting a total of 434 household surveys. They collected information on the time spent fetching water, the amount of water used for domestic tasks (cooking and cleaning) and productive uses (watering gardens, brick making or animal husbandry), and the frequency of these activities. A subset of female respondents wore GPS tracking devices to measure walking speeds and distance to water sources. Water meters were used to validate water consumption information.

The researchers found households with piped water spent 80 percent less time fetching water, representing a savings of close to four hours per week. The vast majority of these time savings accrued to women and girls, confirming that females disproportionately benefit from piped water interventions. These time savings were spent gardening, performing other household chores, caring for children or working outside of the home selling products such as fried buns or charcoal. These families also reported being happier, healthier and less worried.

Water consumption, especially for productive purposes, also increased. Households with piped water were over four times more likely to grow a garden, and garden sizes more than doubled over the course of the study. Furthermore, a larger variety of crops were harvested and households reported both selling and consuming this produce, with plans to expand their crop sales in the coming years.

While the accumulated benefits are impressive, they may actually understate the potential time savings of piped water interventions. At the start of the study, households in all four villages lived just a five-minute walk from their primary water source. On average, rural Zambian households spend about double that time walking to their water source, along with additional time waiting in line and filling water containers. The researchers point out that introducing piped water near homes elsewhere in Zambia could save the average rural household 32 hours per month, which is almost twice the amount of time recouped by households in this instance.

Of course, a piped water infrastructure does have higher upfront costs, which could discourage government and NGO investments. Poverty poses a major barrier when it comes to water access, and with most of the world's poorest countries in sub-Saharan Africa, more research is needed to understand what is needed for communities to sustain piped water networks.

"The benefits we see here make it crucial for future work to understand how these systems can be operated and maintained in a financially sustainable way, even in geographically isolated, rural communities," said Winter.

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Accounting for the gaps in ancient food webs

SANTA FE INSTITUTE

Research News

 

IMAGE: THE BURGESS SHALE FOOD WEB IS ONE OF EIGHT ANCIENT FOOD WEBS THAT WERE ANALYZED FOR SIMILARITIES. view more 

CREDIT: JENNIFER DUNNE

If you want to understand an ecosystem, look at what the species within it eat. In studying food webs -- how animals and plants in a community are connected through their dietary preferences -- ecologists can piece together how energy flows through an ecosystem and how stable it is to climate change and other disturbances. Studying ancient food webs can help scientists reconstruct communities of species, many long extinct, and even use those insights to figure out how modern-day communities might change in the future. There's just one problem: only some species left enough of a trace for scientists to find eons later, leaving large gaps in the fossil record -- and researchers' ability to piece together the food webs from the past.

"When things die and get preserved as fossils, all the stuff that isn't bones and teeth and shells just decays," says the Santa Fe Institute's Vice President for Science Jennifer Dunne, a veteran food web researcher. "Organisms that are primarily soft-bodied, they usually just disappear from the record altogether."

A new paper by paleoecologist Jack Shaw, a PhD student at Yale University who led the study, Dunne and other researchers shines a light on those gaps and points the way to how to account for them. "The missing components of the fossil record -- such as soft-bodied organisms -- represent huge gaps in understanding ancient ecology, but we haven't thought extensively about how those gaps are affecting our inferences," Shaw says. "We're taking the fossil record at face value without critically thinking about how face value might not be robust and accurate."

Focusing on the absence of soft-bodied taxa in the fossil record, the study, published in Paleobiology on January 14, notes that accounting for these data gaps is vital for forming a more accurate picture of ancient food webs. By only looking at fossilized taxa, without accounting for the loss of soft-bodied organisms to the sands of time, for example, researchers might make the mistake of assuming the ecological community was structured differently and less stable than it actually was.

But by drawing on network theory, the researchers were able to show that the inclusion of soft-bodied organisms is vital for realistic depictions of ancient food webs. They found that ecological differences between soft- and hard-bodied taxa appear in the record of an Early Eocene food web, but not in much older Cambrian food webs, suggesting that the differences between the groups have existed for at least 48 million years.

"Geologists and biologists assume that soft-bodied and hard-bodied things have distinct life habits -- where they live or who they eat -- but we actually quantify it here using network analysis," Shaw says.

He and Dunne hope the study will help strengthen future research in the burgeoning field of ancient food web reconstruction. "This work is really important, because it's grappling with some of the fundamental uncertainty relating to the fossil record," says Dunne.

"The methodology can be applied to various other types of biases," not just the soft-bodied organism related bias, Shaw notes. "We're hoping to start being more critical of ancient food webs and perhaps opening them up to being more robust. A better grasp on how ancient food webs were affected by perturbations will allow us to make better predictions of what future ecosystems may look like."

Overactive food quality control system triggers food allergies, Yale scientists say

YALE UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

Food allergies have been increasing dramatically across the developed world for more than 30 years. For instance, as many as 8% of children in the U.S. now experience potentially lethal immune system responses to such foods as milk, tree nuts, fish and shellfish. But scientists have struggled to explain why that is. A prevailing theory has been that food allergies arise because of an absence of natural pathogens such as parasites in the modern environment, which in turn makes the part of the immune system that evolved to deal with such natural threats hypersensitive to certain foods.

In a paper published Jan. 14 in the journal Cell, four Yale immunobiologists propose an expanded explanation for the rise of food allergies -- the exaggerated activation of our food quality control system, a complex and highly evolved program designed to protect us against eating harmful foods. The presence of unnatural substances, including processed food, or environmental chemicals, such as dishwashing detergent, in the modern environment, as well as the absence of natural microbial exposure, play a role in disrupting this food quality control program, they argue.

The theory can lay the groundwork for future treatment or prevention of food allergies, the scientists suggest.

"We can't devise ways to prevent or treat food allergies until we fully understand underlying biology," said co-author Ruslan Medzhitov, Sterling Professor of Immunobiology and investigator for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. "You can't be a good car mechanic if you don't know how a normal car works."

The quality food control program present in the biology of all animals includes sensory guardians -- if something smells or tastes bad, we don't eat it. And there are sentinels in the gut -- if we consume toxins, they are detected and expelled. In the latter case, a part of the immune system as well as parasympathetic arm of the nervous system also mobilize to help neutralize the threat.

This type of immune system response triggers allergies, including food allergies, a fact that gave rise to the so-called "hygiene hypothesis" of food allergies. The lack of natural threats such as parasites made this portion of the immune system hypersensitive and more likely to respond to generally innocuous proteins found in certain food groups, the theory holds. This helped explain why people living in rural areas of the world are much less likely to develop food allergies than those living in more urban areas.

However, food allergies have continued to rise dramatically long after elimination of parasites in the developed world, Medzhitov noted. So the Yale team now theorizes that other environmental factors influenced activity within the natural food quality control system and contributed to immune system hypersensitivity to certain food allergens.

"One factor is increased use of hygiene products and overuse of antibiotics and, secondly, a change in diet and the increased consumption of processed food with reduced exposure to naturally grown food and changed composition of the gut microbiome," Medzhitov said. "Finally, the introduction of food preservatives and environmental chemicals such as dishwashing detergents introduced novel elements for immune system to monitor." Collectively, these changes in the environment effectively trigger food quality control responses making the immune system react to food proteins the way it would react to toxic substances, the team argues.

"It's guilt by association," Medzhitov said.

Food allergies are no different than many other diseases, which are caused by abnormal versions of normal biological responses, he said. Understanding the underlying biology of normal processes such as food quality control system should help researchers identify potential culprits not only in food allergies, but other diseases as well, the authors argue.

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Yale co-authors are Esther Florsheim, a former postdoctoral research associate, Zuri Sullivan, a postdoctoral associate, and William Khoury-Hanold, a postdoctoral fellow, of the Yale Department of Immunolog