(Source: MIRS.news, Published 04/18/23) In the midst of the back and forth between the Gov. Gretchen Whitmer administration and the then-GOP-controlled Legislature over COVID-19 nursing home deaths, the Macomb County prosecutor launched an investigation into that issue within his jurisdiction.
Pete Lucido went so far as to create a countywide protocol for residents reporting COVID-19-related deaths connected to involuntary transfers to nursing homes, potentially based on the Whitmer administration's directives.
Lucido even asked each of the police departments in Macomb to gather whatever information they could on the issue.
The Governor's office at the time issued a statement suggesting that the Prosecutor was engaged in a "shameful political attack based on neither facts nor reality."
Now, some two years later, the investigation continues as complaints from constituents who lost loved ones in nursing homes still trickle into his office, but Lucido told MIRS, "there is no way to determine that the deaths were caused by the nursing home protocols" related to COVID patients.
A frustrated Lucido says that without any "medical police" to look into the reasons behind the deaths, "proof" of a linkage between policy and fatalities "is a problem."
He reported that many of the family members met with the police, but "it is tough to prove the elements of an alleged crime" in this matter.
