A Michigan Democrat gunning for a U.S. Senate seat just got smacked with a political bombshell from his own past. Abdul El-Sayed, who once oversaw Detroit's animal control operations, is watching a brutal scandal crawl back into the spotlight as reported by multiple outlets. The facility was so nightmarish that insiders literally called it a "slaughterhouse."
Here's the backstory. Back in 2015, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan shifted oversight of the city's animal control from police jurisdiction to the health department. Guess who was running that department? Yep, El-Sayed himself. The shelter already had a reputation for being absolutely awful, and the kill rate that year sat at a jaw-dropping 74 percent.
When 7 Action News tried investigating the disaster, El-Sayed actually blocked them from interviewing his newly appointed animal control leader. That's never a good look.
A former staffer named Brittany Roberts blew the whistle on conditions that would make your stomach turn. She had over a decade of shelter experience nationwide, so she knew exactly how wrong everything was. Roberts told reporters she felt embarrassed being part of a team responsible for so many dogs perishing in their cages. Animals weren't exercised, never left their enclosures, and were fed on floors covered in feces.
Roberts said she was fired after threatening to escalate her complaints to state authorities. The final straw for her came when she discovered a dog that had been struck by a vehicle and left for dead inside the facility. She walked past the animal twice before realizing it was still alive, its eyes rolling back to look at her. She described a grim morning routine of simply walking through kennels to determine which animals had survived the night.
A whistleblower lawsuit painted an even uglier picture. Sick animals were housed right next to healthy ones. Staff never bothered scanning strays for microchips. Drains were clogged so badly that urine and feces flooded into kennels. Roaches and rats had completely taken over. Fox 2 Detroit obtained photos showing dogs abandoned in pools of their own blood and vomit. Detroit ultimately shelled out $63,000 in 2016 to settle the legal action.
Now, a full decade later, El-Sayed wants voters to send him to Washington. His campaign centers on a Medicare-for-all proposal and wiping out medical debt. He also wants to eliminate private insurance entirely. Oh, and he regularly calls himself a doctor, even though he has zero clinical practice experience. His medical background consists entirely of government work and authoring a book.
Conservatives are having a field day pointing out the obvious irony. If this guy couldn't manage basic care for shelter animals, why should anyone trust him with healthcare decisions affecting millions of people?
El-Sayed will square off against Republican Congressman Mike Rogers for the Senate seat this November. Something tells us this shelter scandal isn't going away anytime soon.
Read more American news stories at: The American Tribune
