Mississippi slaughterhouse is directly responsible for death of migrant teen who was sucked into machinery, OSHA says

A Mississippi slaughterhouse that supplies chicken to Chick-fil-A is directly to blame for the death of a 16-year-old worker who was sucked into equipment in July and killed within minutes, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration said Tuesday.

OSHA, an agency within the U.S. Labor Department, said that it had cited Georgia-based Mar-Jac Poultry for 14 serious violations and proposed more than $200,000 in fines.

“Mar-Jac Poultry is aware of how dangerous the machinery they use can be when safety standards are not in place to prevent serious injury and death. The company’s inaction has directly led to this terrible tragedy, which has left so many to mourn this child’s preventable death,” OSHA Regional Administrator Kurt Petermeyer said.

Duvan Pérez, the 16-year-old worker, was cleaning the deboning area of the Hattiesburg plant when his hand got caught and his body was pulled into the machinery. OSHA officials say that while a Mar-Jac manager was supervising in and around the area prior to and during the accident, "procedures were not utilized to disconnect power to the machine."

Pérez was the second person to accidentally die at the plant after getting sucked into a machine in a two-year period.

Mar-Jac Poultry did not immediately provide a comment, but in an October statement the company said that all safety procedures had been followed.

In the earlier statement, Mar-Jac attorney Larry Stine told NBC News: “Mar-Jac thoroughly investigated the accident and has not found any errors committed by its safety or human resources employees. It has learned many lessons from the accident and has taken aggressive steps to prevent the occurrence of another accident or hiring underage workers.”

A representative for