Michigan militia group backs Michael Moore’s campaign to hold officials accountable for Flint crisis

Mutual outrage over the contaminated water crisis in Flint, Michigan has created some unexpected allies.

Progressive film maker Michael Moore, a Flint native, and members of the right-wing Genesee County Volunteer Militia may not agree on anything else, but they can agree that they need to keep political pressure on leaders to resolve the crisis in which thousands of people have been poisoned by drinking water, the Detroit Free Press reports.

"For [Moore] to step forward and say something good... this time I agree with him," Dave McKellar, a member of the militia group, told the Free Press. "We're trying to coordinate so the protests don't stop."

The militia group organized a Sunday protest, a week after a similar one held by Moore.

Moore directed the 2002 film, "Bowling for Columbine," which criticized easy access to guns in the United States. The militia group, by contrast, are avid about the Second Amendment. But for now, they have put their differences aside.

Earlier this week, Moore accused elected leaders of killing ten people with poisoned water.

“This is not a mistake,” Moore said. “Ten people have been killed here because of a political decision. They did this. They knew.”

Last year, the city switched its drinking water source to the Flint River to cut costs. State Department of Environmental Quality officials admitted they made a fateful error by failing to require corrosion-control chemicals be added during drinking water treatment. That decision resulted in lead from piping and fixtures to leach into the water, the Free Press reports.

“It’s a crisis created by the Republican governor and is visited upon a city that is majority black and majority poor,” Moore said Sunday.

The militia has joined with the American Red Cross in going door-to-door, distributing clean drinking water to residents.