Key Member of Flint Investigative Team Arrested

Ellis Stafford, the deputy chief investigator for the Michigan Attorney General’s Office team looking into criminal allegations surrounding the Flint water crisis, has resigned following his arrest Saturday on suspicion of drunken driving.

In a statement, Attorney General Bill Schuette said he had accepted Stafford’s resignation

“I want to thank him for his efforts on the Flint water investigation,” Schuette said. “Ellis and his family are in my thoughts and prayers in this challenging time.”

Schuette did not mention Stafford’s arrest, but spokeswoman Andrea Bitely said Stafford had been arrested in Canton, the Detroit Free Press reported.

Stafford, a native of Flint, also was a former inspector for the Michigan State Police and a member of the Detroit Crime Commission, a nonprofit group that places special emphasis on dismantling criminal enterprises that prey upon the citizens in Metro Detroit.

Stafford served as deputy to Andrew Arena, a retired FBI chief and former director of the Detroit Crime Commission who in January was named to oversee the criminal investigation of the water crisis. Former Wayne County prosecutor and Royal Oak attorney Todd Flood is also part of that team.

Residents started complaining of discolored drinking water with particulate matter shortly after the the city began drawing water from the Flint River in 2014, rather than the cleaner Lake Huron, as a cost-saving move while under the control of an emergency manager. The corrosive water caused the lead pipes to leach into the city’s drinking water system.

As many as 12,000 children in Flint may have been exposed to lead by drinking the city’s tap water, for whom lead poisoning can be a life sentence of emotional and intellectual problems. Some homes in Flint had water with lead levels more than 850 times the level the EPA considers unsafe.

Nine people have been charged so far — three in April and six in July.

According to his bio on the Detroit Crime Commission website, Stafford retired in 2011 after 23 years with the Michigan State Police. He is a graduate of the FBI National Academy, Northwestern University’s School of Police Staff and Eastern Michigan University, where he earned an undergraduate degree in public administration.

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