The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, the state’s criminal investigation agency, said Wednesday it is looking into allegations against an Erwin plastics factory where several workers died and some went missing after they were swept away by floodwaters from Hurricane Helene.

“At the request of 1st Judicial District Attorney General Steve Finney, TBI agents are investigating allegations involving Impact Plastics,” Leslie Earhart, the bureau’s spokesperson, said in a statement to NBC News. The bureau deferred additional questions to the District Attorney General’s Office.

Finney in a statement said that he specifically asked “that they review the occurrences of Friday, September 27, 2024, to identify any potential criminal violations.”

  • @thejoker954
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    4611 hours ago

    The company said “we didn’t threaten to fire anyone” but I guarantee its heavily implied.

  • mvilain
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    1310 hours ago

    I wonder if the owner is booking a flight to a non-extraditable country or if he’s going to go private.

    • @[email protected]
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      1810 hours ago

      The worst that will happen is a tax deductable fine. If you kill people but you do it for a corporation, nobody goes to prison.

    • @[email protected]
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      910 hours ago

      Its Tennessee. He’ll buy a steak dinner for the investigator at the club and they will call it good.

  • @Warl0k3
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    1110 hours ago

    The “Tennessee Bureau of Investigation” would probably inspire more confidence if their acronym wasnt TBI.

      • @Warl0k3
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        109 hours ago

        TBI is a commonly seen initialism in US reporting that stands for “Traumatic Brain Injury”. Given the relative amount of education in Tennessee, and their backwards stance on every issue from women’s health to wearing mixed fabrics, identifying as the ‘TBI’ is er… rather unflattering.

        • @SpaceNoodle
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          29 hours ago

          This is the first I’ve heard of that acronym. It was certainly never bandied about when my wife suffered a traumatic injury to her brain.

          • @MutilationWave
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            9 hours ago

            It’s become really common especially since we’re seeing American football players get dementia-like symptoms in their 50s. TBI is an umbrella term covering everything from getting your skull caved in all the way down to the micro concussions that football players get regularly. I recently listened to part of an NPR report about concussions in football but I’ve been seeing TBI used by mainstream outlets for at least a few years now.

            • @SpaceNoodle
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              47 hours ago

              I tend to avoid sports in all possible ways, so maybe that’s why.

              • @Warl0k3
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                6 hours ago

                A reasonable policy. Would that more people were of the same inclination, then maybe there would be less cause to use “TBI” with such frequency in sports reporting

  • @ATDA
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    48 hours ago

    I love in the insurance industry when they say our customers need us, you need to be here.

    Yeah it’s frozen and you know who won’t need an insurance claim? Me.

    This kind of shit is gross. A handful of dollars YOUR dollars means fuck all to me.

    • @[email protected]
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      47 hours ago

      Plus, it ends up costing them more in the long run.

      Shutting down the production line was probably cheaper than a few wrongful death lawsuits.

  • @wiLD0
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    9 hours ago

    The workers were asked to stay even after part of the parking lot was starting to flood.

    It was after the power went out that they closed the factory.

    Tennessee didn’t declare a state of emergency in the county until after the flooding started.

    • @PriorityMotif
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      9 hours ago

      It’s even worse because there is a river in the other side of the road from them. It was the river flooding into the parking lot. There is a spillway or a dam a little farther downstream.

  • @yesman
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    1111 hours ago

    Bring back Pillory.

    • @[email protected]
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      9 hours ago

      Seeing as these people drowned, do the old salem witch trials. Throw the CEO and management into the water weighted down, and if they drown, they were innocent. If they live, they are guilty and should be burned at the stake.