Amid Water Crisis, Suspicious Flint City Hall Break-in Declared 'Inside Job'

An unsolved December break-in to the Flint City Hall office where files on the water crisis were being stored was “definitely an inside job,” the city’s police chief has told local media.

That statement raised more than a few eyebrows as Flint officials are currently being investigated for their role in the ongoing lead poisoning crisis. Three months after the burglary, there are still no suspects, and officials have only confirmed that a television has gone missing, though documents were reportedly strewn throughout the office.

The city’s new police chief Tim Johnson told the Flint Journal on Friday that the circumstances are too suspicious for the break-in to have been random.

“It was definitely an inside job. The power cord [to the TV] wasn’t even taken. The average drug user knows that you’d need the power cord to be able to pawn it,” he said. “It was somebody that had knowledge of those documents that really wanted to keep them out of the right hands, out of the hands of someone who was going to tell the real story of what’s going on with Flint water.”

The burglary was discovered after a City Hall employee returning to work after a break on December 28 noticed a broken window. Surveillance footage showed a person leaving with a TV that investigators believe came from the office. No other rooms in the building were targeted.