The old insult about a hopeless politician was that he "couldn't get elected dogcatcher." Abdul El-Sayed has managed to make the line painfully literal.
Michigan's Democratic Senate nominee is facing fresh questions about his time as Detroit health director, when the city's deeply troubled Animal Control operation was placed under his department. From Fox News:
After winning a bruising primary against Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Mich., El-Sayed is asking Michigan voters to send him to the U.S. Senate, but his record running Detroit’s Health Department and the troubled animal-control operation under its authority has generated renewed scrutiny.
"I actually really really don't want to believe this. Can someone verify?" questioned Michael LaRosa, former first lady Jill Biden's one-time press secretary.
"This is sickening. Abdul El-Sayed wants Michiganders to trust him with their families," El-Sayed's Republican opponent, Mike Rogers, wrote on X. "Meanwhile, Detroiters couldn’t even trust him with their pets."
The scrutiny stems in part from an October 2015 whistleblower lawsuit filed by former Detroit Animal Control officer Brittany Roberts, who alleged animals died from inadequate food and medical care, were kept in filthy conditions and were subjected to other mistreatment, according to The Daily Mail. Roberts also reportedly alleged she was demeaned, harassed and ultimately fired after reporting the problems. The lawsuit landed the same month — and shortly before — the city moved Animal Control from the Detroit Police Department to the Health Department led by El-Sayed.
"I was almost embarrassed with myself to be part of a team that played a role of the death of so many dogs in their cages," Roberts said in 2015 as she accused the agency of neglect and mistreatment, according to The Daily Mail. "Every morning, we’d just walk around and see who was alive before we could even feed."
Records covering the period around his tenure show that 4,680 dogs and cats were euthanized. During 2016, the first full calendar year Animal Control operated under his Health Department, 1,056 dogs and 29 cats were put down.
El-Sayed deserves one piece of credit before anyone starts sharpening the political knives. He inherited a disaster; Animal Control had been under the Detroit Police Department; its live-release rate was somewhere around 20% to 26%, and complaints about filthy conditions, poor treatment, and unnecessary deaths predated his takeover. From CBS News:
Nearly 12,000 people have signed a petition on change.org that demands the closure of the department that's responsible for keeping the streets safe from stray dogs and keeping stray dogs safe from a horrible fate at the hands of the elements.
Also, a protest took place Thursday led by Citizens for Change for Detroit Dogs & Cats with the same message: Shut down Animal Control. Detroit attorney Tamara French, who leads the group, said she has submitted 12 documents asking for information about Animal Control, which have so far gone unanswered.
Questions include how many dogs are collected every year, how many days they're kept before euthanasia, when microchips are checked and how owners are notified, if temperaments are tested -- and how they're tested -- and how many dogs are turned over to the Michigan Humane Society.
"We don't feel there's transparency," a protester said.
A report submitted to the Michigan Department of Agriculture shows Detroit Animal Control collected 3,869 dogs in 2013, and returned 157 of them to their owners. Another 2,258 cats were collected, with 13 of those getting reunited with their owner.
This follows unrelated reports from two years ago that claimed Detroit had 50,000 stray dogs roaming the streets.
"Fifty or 60 dogs are going to die today, and cats too," French said at the protest.
Harry Ward, director of Detroit's Animal Control, came outside during the protest and said he's guided by one goal: public safety.
Ward told WWJ's Mike Campbell the euthanasia rates are similar, if not the same, to the two other licensed shelters in the city of Detroit --which he admits is still too high.
A whistleblower lawsuit was filed shortly before Animal Control moved under his Health Department. From Fox2 Detroit:
Images taken at the Detroit Animal Shelter appear to show dogs left to die in their own blood, vomit and feces. Brittany Roberts says she was fired after complaining to management and documenting the alleged abuse.
"I was almost embarrassed with myself to be part of a team that played a role of the death of so many dogs in their cages," she tells FOX 2's Hannah Saunders. "The dogs, they don't get exercise; they're not let out of their cages; they're fed on the floor with feces."
Roberts has ten years of experience working for shelters across the country."It's our job to enforce the laws, and I just feel that me speaking up and asking, "I'm going to complain, I'm going to go to the state, I'm going to go higher.' Eventually they said, 'She's got to go.'"
She began working for the shelter in March, passionate about animals and hoping to make a difference. She knew she had to do something the day she says one dog was left for dead after being hit by a car.
"That's what we used, was the wheelbarrow to put the deceased dogs in the freezer. After I passed by her a second time, I walked in there and I realized she rolled her eyes back and looked at me and she was alive. She wasn't dead."
She calls the shelter a slaughterhouse and says dogs were rarely euthanized properly -- instead, neglected and mistreated until they died.
"Every morning, we'd just walk around and see who was alive before we could even feed," she says.
Roberts' lawyer says her whistleblower lawsuit prefaces many more lawsuits by the owners of the deceased dogs.
"Brittany was trying to speak up on the inside and was being ignored, so hopefully this lawsuit is a way to speak up on the outside and get change," says her attorney, Jennifer Grieco.
Conditions also improved under El-Sayed; he brought in Melissa Miller to run the operation, adoptions were expanded, partnerships with rescue organizations grew, and the live-release rate reached roughly 61% to 62% by late 2016. His campaign says his reforms eventually placed nearly 80% of animals in homes.
Fine, give him the improvement, then ask the question politicians always hate: What about the rest?
During the transition, a local television crew trying to interview Miller was blocked by El-Sayed, who said the decision was connected to its previous coverage of Animal Control.
From WXYZ News:
For months now, 7 Action News has highlighted the critical concerns of animal care at Detroit Animal Control and it seems at least one city official didn't like it.
On Monday, the City of Detroit Health Director Abdul El-Sayed barred 7 Action News from interviewing the new head of animal control, telling one of our reporters that it was because of the stories we've done on Detroit Animal Control.
For months 7 Action News has sought to bring attention to the deplorable conditions inside animal control that have led to the deaths of people's pets. We also sought to bring attention to the unnecessary killings of people's pets because they couldn't afford the fines and fees.
On Monday, Melissa Miller, the new Director of Detroit Animal Control, began her work to turnaround the much criticized facility.
Miller is highly respected among animal advocates and rescues.
The city later paid $63,000 to settle the whistleblower lawsuit. A federal judge also temporarily blocked Detroit Animal Control in 2016 from taking dogs from homes without a warrant, consent, or emergency circumstances.
None of it arrives at a convenient moment.
Republican Senate nominee Mike Rogers already leads El-Sayed 51% to 47% in a new Michigan survey. More damaging, 54% of registered voters said they're concerned El-Sayed's positions are too extreme. Even 30% of Democrats expressed concern about his ideology.
The survey was conducted Aug. 6 through Aug. 10, before the Animal Control story erupted. So dead dogs didn't create El-Sayed's polling problem; they landed on top of one he already had.
El-Sayed won a Democratic primary by presenting himself as the progressive willing to shake up government. Now Michigan voters are getting a closer look at a government department he actually helped run.
He can point to improvement, and he should. Voters can also look at thousands of dead animals, lawsuits, ugly allegations, and an attempt to shut down uncomfortable press coverage.
Then there's the curious silence from PETA. As of Friday, Aug. 14, I can find no public statement from the organization addressing El-Sayed's Detroit Animal Control record.
For an outfit, once described by the great Rush Limbaugh as "3 people and a fax machine," that can turn nearly anything involving an animal into a protest, press release, petition, or person wearing a dog costume, silence becomes noticeable.
PETA protesters once descended on the Detroit Auto Show and smashed a Chrysler with sledgehammers over the company's connection to the Iditarod.
Apparently Detroit isn't too far away when the cause is right.
Rush had a lot of fun mocking activist organizations as ridiculous as PETA, which has spent decades proving how quickly it can mobilize when an animal might be mistreated.
Yet the El-Sayed story includes allegations that dogs were kept in filthy conditions, denied adequate medical care, left without exercise, and sometimes weren't routinely scanned for microchips before euthanasia.
PETA does support humane euthanasia when animals are suffering or can't safely be placed, so merely pointing to Detroit's euthanasia totals wouldn't make the case. From PETA's website:
Euthanasia is a sad reality caused by people who abandon animals, refuse to sterilize their animals, and patronize pet shops and breeders instead of adopting stray animals or animals from animal shelters. Every day in the U.S., tens of thousands of puppies and kittens are born, and there will never be enough homes for all these animals. Animal shelters and shelter workers are stuck with the heart-wrenching job of dealing with unwanted animals.
Some people wonder why “surplus” animals can’t simply live in animal shelters instead of being killed. Even if government-sponsored and private animal shelters had the resources to house the millions of homeless animals born in the U.S. each year (and they don’t), “no-kill” shelters do not provide a solution to the problem of companion animal homelessness.
Dogs, cats, and other companion animals need much more than food, water, and a cage or pen. They also need lots of loving care, regular and sustained companionship, respect for their individuality, and the opportunity to run and play. As difficult as it may be for us to accept, euthanasia (when carried out by veterinarians or trained animal shelter professionals with a painless intravenous injection of sodium pentobarbital) is often the most compassionate and dignified way for unwanted animals to leave a world that has no place for them.
The alleged treatment surrounding some of those animals is harder to wave away. PETA normally has plenty to say about neglect, suffering, cages, and inadequate care.
So where are they now?
Maybe an explanation is coming. Until then, their silence deserves the same scrutiny PETA so eagerly gives everyone else.
"Couldn't get elected dogcatcher" used to be political sarcasm.
In Michigan, voters may decide it sounds more like a job reference.
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