Flint Lead Lawyer Sues Jackson, MSDH, Alleging Lead-Poisoned Children
Lawyers representing hundreds of Jackson children have sued the City of Jackson, Trilogy Engineering Services, and dozens of individual employees and public officials over allegations of persistent failures to address corrosion control in the Jackson water system. The lawsuit claims that spiking lead levels over the last decade and inaction on the part of public officials has resulted in lead-poisoned children in the city.
“Individually and in combination,” the lawsuit reads, “these conscience-shocking acts of deliberate indifference … have caused hundreds, if not thousands of Jackson’s children, including Plaintiff, to be poisoned.”
The complaint is an extensive 84-page document that excoriates the City of Jackson, Trilogy, and the Mississippi State Department of Health for “deliberately and knowing breach(ing) the constitutionally protected bodily integrity of Plaintiff by creating and perpetuating the ongoing exposure to contaminated water, with deliberate indifference to the known risks of harm which said exposure would, and did, cause to Plaintiff.”
In addition to the Trilogy Engineering Services, the City of Jackson and MSDH, the suit names Jackson Mayor Chokwe A. Lumumba; former Mayor Tony Yarber; three former Public Works Directors: Bob Miller, Kishia Powell, and (interim director) Jarriot Smash; MSDH Director of Health Protection Jim Craig, 20 unnamed MSDH employees and 20 unnamed “other” employees.
Read more: https://www.mississippifreepress.org/17173/flint-lead-lawyer-sues-jackson-msdh-alleging-lead-poisoned-children/