FLINT, MI — Genesee County Jail employees lied to prisoners by saying the water source inside the facility had been switched back to Detroit from the Flint River more than a year before that actually took place, according to a federal lawsuit.
Sheriff Robert Pickell, Jail Administrator Capt.
The lawsuit alleges Pickell, Gould and Genesee County violated the inmates’ Constitutional rights by forcing them to drink contaminated water, not allowing inmates to receive bottled water from non-incarcerated individuals, rationed water for inmates to 33.8 ounces per day, denied access to bottle water unless inmates "deserved" it and eventually allowed inmates to purchase water from the jail’s commissary.
"It’s all fabricated.
I stand by my record of being good to human beings."
An official response to the allegations has not yet been filed.
"Plaintiffs were not offered any sort of clean water until well over a year after defendants Pickell and Gould knew that the Genesee County Jail’s tap water was contaminated," according to the lawsuit.
"Even after bottled water was available to the jail, plaintiffs were routinely denied access to the water.
Plaintiffs were denied water by Genesee County Jail personnel, whom defendants Pickell and Gould were responsible for, subjectively believed that plaintiffs did not ‘deserve it.’"
Jail employees refused to distribute bottled water to the inmates and kept it for employees’ use, the lawsuit alleges.