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As of Friday, March 18, there were still no suspects in the case, and officials say it may never be known what -- other than a TV -- was taken.
But the city's new police chief Tim Johnson says it's too suspicious that there was a break-in where important documents were kept, just as investigations began heating up and decision makers were beginning to be held accountable.
"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," Johnson said.
The office was not assigned to any city employees at the time of the break-in, city officials have 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," he said.
Flint Mayor Karen Weaver said documents were strewn about the room, and it is impossible to know if any of them were taken. Weaver wasn't so quick to allege it was an inside job, but did say the situation seemed odd and suspicious to her. "Well sure (it's suspicious) when they go into a room where all the water files were and they take a TV, but not the cord to make it work, yes," she said.
Although, federal criminal investigations regarding the Flint water crisis were not announced until February, and Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder did not declare a state emergency until January.
City Hall surveillance footage shows someone walking away with a TV that was believed taken from the room, said Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton, but what's not clear is what else -- if anything -- was taken, or by whom.
An employee returning to work at City Hall, 1101 S. Saginaw St., after the holiday break on Monday, Dec. 28, discovered a broken window and the break-in. No other offices were disturbed.
Weaver did not say exactly where the room was located in the suite, but did say a window was broken in an apparent effort to access to the area. "They had to know what room to go into, I could just say that," she said.
Leyton said that because nobody knows exactly what documents were in there, no one knows if any are missing. No warrants were requested in the case. "No one is able to say what was in the room where the TV was located," he said. "So, no one can say what was taken."
Weaver agreed."We don't know if papers or files were taken because papers were all over the floor," she said. "Maybe papers were taken, maybe they weren't. We just don't know."
The break-in remains under investigation by Flint and state police.
. . . if every bit of communication/information has been recorded by the NSA, what's the problem here? Hasn't the NSA been around since 1952? And hasn't it gotten more sophisticated in what it harbors in its dark corners of information? Shouldn't someone be looking there for the information that was surreptitiously removed from that office? I don't know, it seems a simple solution to me.