BATON ROUGE, LA – Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry
has begun an investigation relating to the deaths of four nursing home
residents transferred to a Waterbury Companies Inc’s warehouse in Independence
for Hurricane Ida.
In a video posted today, Attorney General Landry
announced a team of his investigators at the Louisiana Department of Justice is
launching a full investigation.
“Our goal will be to determine who decided to move these
patients to this apparently unsafe and potentially inappropriate facility. We
wish to determine who authorized that these patients be moved to that facility,
who oversaw the movement, who later turned away career staff members of the
Louisiana Department of Health when they attempted to look into this situation.
And why did the Police Chief and the Sheriff state an investigation was not
needed,” said Attorney General Landry. “How exactly did these deaths occur?”
Attorney General Landry expressed concern that his Medicaid Fraud
Control Unit and the Unified Command Group were not informed of the potential
patient abuse or neglect until the deaths were announced publicly.
Additionally, the Attorney General expressed concern that the Police Chief of
Independence and the Sheriff of Tangipahoa Parish, both brothers of the
Governor, said they do not intend to investigate these deaths.
“This may be a long process; and we are all in the
middle of a recovery from Hurricane Ida, which requires our attention,” added
Attorney General Landry. “However, we must determine the facts surrounding
these tragic deaths.”