DETROIT — A day before Gov. Rick Snyder’s annual State of the State address, about 60 protesters gathered outside his apartment in downtown Ann Arbor and chanted for his arrest.
“Many of us think this governor has committed a crime, and want to see justice for Flint,” said Jan BenDor, who helped organize Monday's protest and led a failed recall effort against Snyder in 2011. “If that whole city could be poisoned, it could happen to any of us.”
The protesters marched from the University of Michigan’s campus in 12-degree weather, at times blocking passing cars, before they arrived at Snyder’s voting address in the area of East Washington and South Main Street. There, the marchers circled the block repeatedly while chanting “Justice for Flint! Arrest Rick Snyder!”
The protest was at least the third rally since Saturday, when President Obama declared a state of emergency in Flint. The declaration came after local officials admitted the city’s water supply had been contaminated with lead for months.
On Saturday, Michael Moore drew a couple of hundred people to Flint’s City Hall where the activist filmmaker and Flint native accused Snyder of intentionally poisoning the water. Then on Sunday, the Rev. Jesse Jackson demanded justice at a packed church in Flint, and dubbed the entire city “a crime scene.”
Flint's drinking water became contaminated with lead after the city, in 2014, switched its supply source from Lake Huron water treated by the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department to more corrosive and polluted Flint River water, treated at the Flint water treatment plant.
The switch was made as a cost-cutting move while the city was under the control of a state-appointed emergency manager. The state Department of Environmental Quality has acknowledged a mistake in failing to require the addition of needed corrosion-control chemicals to the water. That caused lead, which causes brain damage and other health problems in children, to leach into the water from pipes and fixtures.
Residents' complaints about the taste, odor and appearance of the water, which began immediately after the switch, were largely ignored by state officials.
In response to the intense criticism, Snyder said at a news conference last week that officials are taking every action to address the problem. “This is something you wish that never happened, and let’s see that it never happens again in the state of Michigan,” he said.
The rhetoric at Monday’s protest was similar, though perhaps even more pointed, than protests in the past few days. BenDor, the organizer, said of Snyder: “He’s dangerous. He has absolutely no empathy for human beings. It’s all about the money.”
And speaking just before the march on Monday, Flint native Jeff Brown echoed Jackson’s comments that the city is a crime scene and added, “(Flint) is deteriorating, and it makes us all very angry. He (Snyder) should be arrested.”
Follow Daniel Bethencourt on Twitter: @_dbethencourt
