You can add dogs and cats to the list of things Abdul El-Sayed hates after bombshell reporting from the Daily Mail revealed that El-Sayed’s “slaughterhouse” animal shelter killed over 4,000 dogs and cats under his leadership.
As reported by the Daily Mail:
… From 2015 to 2017, El-Sayed served as executive director and health officer of the Detroit Health Department – a powerful post that put him over the city’s Animal Control operation during some of its darkest days.
In a 2017 ABC News profile of his bid for governor, El-Sayed pointed to his record as Detroit’s health director, boasting that his team had ‘rebuilt the animal control system.’
But according to records obtained by the Daily Mail, nearly 4,680 dogs and cats were euthanized by Detroit Animal Care and Control (DACC) during the period when El-Sayed was in his post at the Detroit Health Department.
The 2015 numbers were particularly stark. That year, DACC euthanized 1,988 dogs and 272 cats – a total of 2,260 animals.
The figure represented 26.4 percent of all dogs euthanized in the county, according to Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development’s Animal Shelter Annual Report.
While the DACC failed to publicly report its 2016 euthanasia figures, according to records, an exclusive report obtained by the Daily Mail reveals that DACC euthanized 1,056 dogs and 29 cats that year.
That year, one dog was mistakenly euthanized while it was supposed to be at DACC only for a mandatory rabies quarantine, as reported by WXYZ 7 News Detroit.
One Michigander Theresa Sumpter wrote on Facebook at the time: ‘2016 shelter reports are in, except for Detroit Animal Controls not posted yet. Michigan Anti-Cruelty Society killing more dogs than anyone!’
According to The Detroit News, in 2017, DACC euthanized a further 1,404 dogs and 13 cats.
The DACC had only about a 20 percent save/live-release rate in 2015, according to animal rescue site Best Friends, meaning roughly 80 percent of animals were not released alive.
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Meanwhile, just shortly after El-Sayed took over Detroit’s health department in August 2015, former animal-control officer Brittany Roberts filed a whistleblower lawsuit against the City of Detroit and related defendants alleging widespread mistreatment and dysfunction inside the shelter.
In the October 2015 lawsuit, Roberts claimed that animals at Detroit Animal Control were subjected to overcrowded and unsanitary conditions, that records were improperly maintained, and that dogs were not routinely scanned for microchips before euthanasia.
She also accused the department of serious animal-care and management failures, including inadequate care of sick and injured animals and dogs being left in cages without proper exercise or attention.
She claimed she was harassed and ultimately fired after raising concerns about conditions at the facility.
FOX 2 Detroit reported at the time that Roberts described the shelter as a ‘dog slaughterhouse.’ Photographs she provided appeared to show dogs surrounded by blood, vomit and feces.
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Read more here.
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