Abdul El-Sayed Has Blood of Thousands of Cats and Dogs On His Hands [WATCH]

Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El Sayed is facing renewed scrutiny over a grim chapter from his tenure leading the Detroit Health Department.

Records reported by the Daily Mail show that thousands of dogs and cats were euthanized while the Democrat served as executive director and health officer.

According to those records, Detroit Animal Care and Control put down nearly 4,680 dogs and cats between 2015 and 2017.

The staggering toll lands awkwardly for a candidate who has leaned heavily on his medical and public health credentials.

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The 2015 numbers were especially ugly.

The facility killed 1,988 dogs and 272 cats, accounting for more than a quarter of all dogs euthanized in the county that year.

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El Sayed later claimed in a 2017 profile that his team had “rebuilt the animal control system,” but the numbers told a far less flattering story.

The live release rate stood at roughly 20 percent in 2015 before improving during later years.

Those statistics were accompanied by disturbing allegations from former employee Brittany Roberts.

Her 2015 whistleblower lawsuit described the city shelter as a “dog slaughterhouse,” a phrase that hardly resembles the sort of bureaucratic success story politicians enjoy placing in campaign biographies.

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Roberts alleged that animals were packed into overcrowded and unsanitary conditions, sometimes surrounded by feces, blood, and vomit.

She also claimed dogs were not consistently scanned for microchips before being euthanized and that injured or sick animals received inadequate treatment.

One particularly troubling case involved a dog named Coco. The animal was mistakenly killed even though it was only supposed to remain quarantined for a mandatory rabies observation after biting another animal.

El Sayed acknowledged “systematic failure” during a protest over conditions at the facility.

Yet his response to mounting media attention reportedly included an effort to persuade a local journalist to stop covering demonstrations because the cameras were hurting employee morale.

FOX 2 reporter Hannah Saunders publicly addressed that pressure in a Facebook post.

She wrote that El Sayed asked her to avoid covering additional protests at Detroit Animal Control, an extraordinary request from a public official confronting serious questions about a city operation.

Saunders said El Sayed sent her a text reading, “Could you please avoid it? It’s already reeling and cameras are killing the team’s morale.”

Apparently the cameras were considered a bigger morale problem than the conditions residents and employees were raising alarms about.

El Sayed also claimed the FOX 2 reporter did “not cover things objectively.”

That familiar complaint did little to answer the central questions about dead animals, missing euthanasia information, alleged neglect, and the management decisions made under his authority.

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Public anger was not limited to one employee or one television reporter.

The Facebook group Citizens for Change for Detroit Dogs & Cats featured repeated demands for new leadership throughout 2015, along with photographs and accounts that members said documented neglect and deplorable shelter conditions.

Detroit eventually settled Roberts’ lawsuit for $63,000 without admitting the full scope of her allegations.

A settlement does not establish every claim as fact, but it hardly erases the serious concerns surrounding the facility during El Sayed’s leadership.

When the Daily Mail sought comment, El Sayed defended his tenure and portrayed the changes as a major humane care turnaround for Michigan.

His campaign also admitted that Detroit Animal Control had been operating under “outdated, inhumane procedures” that threatened public safety before he arrived.

The campaign declared, “Under his leadership, Detroit reversed its save rate entirely, placing nearly 80 percent of animals into loving homes because of Abdul’s implemented changes,” pointing to later improvements as proof that his reforms worked.

Still, the campaign did not explain why the euthanasia figures for 2016 were not publicly disclosed.

El Sayed may prefer voters to focus on the eventual improvement, but thousands of dead dogs and cats remain part of the record.

For a far-left candidate selling government competence and medical expertise, the Detroit shelter controversy is a brutal reminder that lofty promises cannot bury grim results.

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