Black Hawk County Sheriff - Test Iowa $26 million publicity stunt

[47of74]

Yeah figured that

Black Hawk County Sheriff Tony Thompson said he is done with "the enormous failure" of Test Iowa.

"The realities of Test Iowa appears to be a $26 million publicity stunt for the Governor and nothing more,” Thompson told KCRG-TV9.

The comments came as the Governor's Office reversed course on its plan to close the Test Iowa site in Waterloo and move it to Marshall County, which already had higher test rates and fewer cases than Black Hawk County. On Friday, the state changed its mind and decided to keep the Waterloo site open through May 28th.

The initial decision to close the Test Iowa site drew frustration from Sheriff Thompson at a news conference Thursday.

[benld74]

1. My nephew & family live in that county.

When processing plant had massive infections, they were placed into a 2 week at home stay. Entire county.

Wonder if this sheriff asshat did then

[rurallib]

2. I am confused by your comment

The Blackhawk county sheriff has been basically the lead in getting testing into the county and getting the plant shut down and cleaned up. If that is a sheriff asshat then we should all have sheriff asshats.

Our dear governor on the other hand seems to have been snookered by the promises of this group in Utah and maybe a bit star-struck that Ashton Kutcher pushed them.

[47of74]

4. Lack of research and assuming every sheriff in Iowa is an Arpaio clone

[47of74]

3. He was calling for the plant to shut down

Sheriff Asshat, as you blithely called him, would have on his own but his hands were tied by Corona Kimmy. He called for the plant to shut well before they actually did.

On April 10, Tony Thompson, the sheriff for Black Hawk County in Iowa, visited the giant Tyson Foods pork plant in Waterloo. What he saw, he said, “shook me to the core.”

Workers, many of them immigrants, were crowded elbow to elbow as they broke down hog carcasses zipping by on a conveyor belt. The few who had face coverings wore a motley assortment of bandannas, painters’ masks or even sleep masks stretched around their mouths. Some had masks hanging around their necks.

Sheriff Thompson and other local officials lobbied Tyson to close the plant, worried about a coronavirus outbreak. In an April 14 phone call, county health officials asked Tyson to shut down temporarily, Tyson said. But Tyson was “less than cooperative,” said the sheriff, who supervises the county’s coronavirus response, and Iowa’s governor declined to shut the facility.