Brooklyn Homeless Shelter Residents Plan To Sue City After Allegedly Being Served Expired Food
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Residents of a Brooklyn homeless shelter are planning to sue the city after multiple people got sick after allegedly eating expired food.
The residents say officials tried to cover it up, CBSN New York's Scott Rapoport reports.
There was outrage Monday from residents and community advocates outside the Fort Greene homeless shelter. Some say they were served rancid food at the facility that made them violently ill.
"When we got to the hospital, they definitely diagnosed it as being food poisoning. I threw up three times that day," Kenneth Gilmore said.
Back in late October, about six residents claimed the chicken they were served was beyond expired and caused food poisoning.
They say a bogus first label on the food said it expired on Oct. 31, but a second label underneath revealed the food expired on Sept. 5, making it almost two months old.
"You wouldn't even feed this crap to a dog," community advocate Michael Thomas said.
Despite that evidence, last week Fabienne Laraque, the Department of Human Services' medical director, told city council that essentially the food was fine, saying, "Testing from the incident showed that the food was negative for bacteria pathogens."
"The fact of the matter is this food could've been infected with toxins. It could've been a virus infecting it that could've caused food poisoning," attorney Sanford Rubenstein said.
Furious protesters now want the doctor director fired and say if the food was OK, why did residents get so sick?
It's a question CBS2 wanted to ask the Department of Homeless Services, but they declined to be interviewed on camera.
The lawyer representing some of those who got sick says he is planning a lawsuit against New York City and the suppliers and transporters of the food.
