(WXYZ) – Criminal charges may be pending against Governor Gretchen Whitmer for placing COVID patients in nursing homes early in the pandemic.
The new Macomb County prosecutor, Peter Lucido, says people who have lost loved ones to COVID as residents or staff in nursing homes should go back to get the important information about the circumstances of their deaths and take it to the local police and ‘ to file a complaint as an unlawful death.
Lucido says according to HIPAA laws, he cannot get the information in his own investigation.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is currently under investigation for allegedly treating the number of COVID deaths in nursing homes. According to Lucido, only 5 states, including Michigan and New York, used the care facilities as hubs.
Lucido tells 7 Action News: ‘If we find out that there is an intentional neglect of office if we realize that there was a reckless danger to someone’s life by bringing them in, we would continue with charges against the governor. Of course we would. No one is higher than the law in this state. ”
Anyone who has had loved ones in nursing homes in the past year knows about the pain of COVID deaths in isolation without personal visits.
Lucido started researching it last year as a state senator. He issued a statement in August saying more than 2,000 residents and 21 staff in nursing homes had died, 32% of all deaths.
Lucido asks people to go back to the nursing homes and gather the important information around deaths and take it to the local police to file an unlawful death report.
He will meet with Macomb County Police to teach them how to process and verify the information and bring it to his office.
‘Why did my mother die or why did my father, brother, sister or aunt die? Was it because of the policy by bringing in COVID-infected patients who had spread to my mother that my mother had been killed? Lucido said.
After becoming prosecutor this year, Lucido asked fellow prosecutors to set up a Blue-Ribbon committee for consistency to investigate these cases.
The association as a group refused, saying Lucido should address the request to the Michigan Attorney General and associates. Lucido gave letters in which it appears that he did so in May.
The attorney general said there was not a proper basis to institute a criminal investigation. The U.S. attorney said they would look into his request.
“I did not receive very heartily. It’s not all politics. “This is about people who have died as a result of a policy drawn up by the Governor,” Lucido told 7 Action News.
We’ve got a statement from Governor Whitmer saying:
Our protection of Michiganders, especially the elderly and our most vulnerable, has been our top priority from the beginning. The policy of the administration followed CDC guidelines on old age homes closely, and we put the testing of residents and staff of old age homes first to save lives. Early in the pandemic, the state acted quickly to create a network of regional hubs with isolation units and sufficient PBT to prevent the spread of COVID-19 within a facility. In addition, we offered 100 percent of the nursing home resident priority access to the vaccine. Both the former head of AARP, as well as an independent UM study, praised our work to save lives in nursing homes.
Lucido’s remarks are shameful political attacks that do not reside in reality or in reality. Even his former colleague, Republican Senator Ed McBroom, said they “saw no evidence or testimony that says a nursing home was forced to take someone against their will.” And there is a reason why Mr. Lucido’s colleagues publicly reprimanded this politically motivated waste of taxpayers. Michiganders are tired of these little biased games, and we will not pay attention to them either.