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Hundreds Taken to Warehouse During Ida Resulting in 4 Deaths, Attorney General Jeff Landry Launches Investigation

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.”