Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed faces renewed scrutiny over thousands of animal deaths at Detroit's city shelter during his tenure as health director, and his Republican opponent is making sure voters know about it.
El-Sayed, who won his party's primary against Rep. Haley Stevens, oversaw Detroit Animal Care and Control from late 2015 through 2016, a period in which a former shelter employee branded the facility a "dog slaughterhouse" and a federal judge intervened to stop the city from seizing pets without warrants. Now, as he asks Michigan voters to send him to the U.S. Senate, records from that era are circulating on social media, and drawing sharp responses from both sides of the aisle.
Republican opponent Mike Rogers posted on X, calling the record disturbing. His campaign, and even a former Biden White House aide, amplified the story, raising questions about whether El-Sayed can survive the fallout in a competitive general election.
Brittany Roberts started working at the Detroit Animal Care and Control shelter in March 2015. Within months, she filed a whistleblower lawsuit, in October 2015, alleging animals died from inadequate food and medical care, were kept in filthy conditions, and suffered other mistreatment that violated state law and department policy. Roberts alleged that dogs were rarely euthanized through proper procedures but instead neglected until they died in their cages.
Fox News Digital reported that Roberts, in 2015, described the grim reality of daily life inside the shelter:
"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. Every morning, we'd just walk around and see who was alive before we could even feed."
Roberts also alleged she was demeaned, harassed, and ultimately fired after reporting the problems. Detroit agreed to pay $63,000 to settle her lawsuit in July 2016.
The numbers behind her claims were stark. State records from the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development placed the shelter's live-release rate at just 26% in 2015. Best Friends Animal Society, a national animal-welfare organization, put the figure even lower, at 20%. That same year, 1,988 dogs and 272 cats were euthanized at the facility, a total of 2,260 animals.
The Daily Mail reported that records showed 4,680 dogs and cats were euthanized over the period surrounding El-Sayed's tenure, though the exact years that total covers remain unclear. The shelter did not publicly release its 2016 euthanasia figures. Numbers obtained by the Daily Mail showed 1,056 dogs and 29 cats euthanized in 2016 alone.
The shelter's problems extended beyond conditions inside the facility. In February 2016, a federal judge temporarily blocked Detroit Animal Care and Control from seizing dogs from residents' homes without a warrant, consent, or emergency circumstances. The ruling came in response to a lawsuit brought by Detroit residents, some of whom alleged their dogs died at the city shelter or shortly after leaving it.
Animal Control had been under the Detroit Police Department since 2012. In late October 2015, the city moved the operation to the Detroit Health Department, which El-Sayed led. The mayor's office said the transfer was intended "in part to change the operation's culture," and cited inadequate shelters and Detroit's recent emergence from bankruptcy as major challenges.
El-Sayed has acknowledged inheriting a troubled operation. During a 2024 podcast interview on Crooked Media, he described the situation he walked into:
"When I was the new director of the Detroit Health Department, I inherited a part of the job that I never trained for and never thought I would do, which is Detroit Animal Control. And it was a mess at the time, and I needed somebody who I could trust, who could come in and do right by the animals and right by the people of the city of Detroit. And Mel Miller was that person."
Miller, hired in December 2015 as the new animal-control director, oversaw changes that did improve the numbers. The shelter scrapped its no-adoption policy and began working with rescue and foster organizations. By September 2016, local reporting placed the live-release rate at 61%, up from 26% the year before. Miller reported in October 2016 that the figure had reached 62%, nearly triple the prior year's rate.
El-Sayed's campaign told Fox News Digital that he "dramatically reduced animal euthanizations and reversed the Detroit Animal Control's abysmal save rate" during his time as health director. The campaign pointed to a 15% pay raise for frontline animal-care officers, efforts to fully staff the operation, a move into a larger facility donated by the Michigan Humane Society, overhauled care protocols, and expanded partnerships with outside animal-welfare groups. The campaign also claimed that nearly 80% of animals were eventually placed in homes, though the specific timeframe for that figure was not provided.
Then-Mayor Mike Duggan said at the time that the previous euthanasia rate had been "unacceptable" and that the improved numbers were "more in line with national standards."
The improvements are real, but they do not erase the record that preceded them. More than 2,200 animals were euthanized in 2015, the year El-Sayed took over the operation. A whistleblower alleged systemic neglect and was paid $63,000 to settle her claims. A federal judge had to intervene to stop warrantless seizures of residents' pets. And the shelter failed to publicly report its 2016 euthanasia numbers, figures that only came to light through outside reporting.
El-Sayed's pattern of saying one thing while presiding over another is not new to Michigan voters. His COVID-era record drew similar scrutiny when he demanded strict lockdown compliance from the public while cheering unmasked protests.
Mike Rogers, El-Sayed's Republican opponent, seized on the resurfaced record. Rogers wrote on X:
"This is sickening. Abdul El-Sayed wants Michiganders to trust him with their families. Meanwhile, Detroiters couldn't even trust him with their pets."
The criticism did not come only from Republicans. Michael LaRosa, a former press secretary to first lady Jill Biden, reacted publicly: "I actually really really don't want to believe this. Can someone verify?" When a Democratic operative's first instinct is to hope the story isn't true, the candidate has a problem.
El-Sayed's nomination itself reflects a broader pattern of Democratic primary voters ousting established incumbents in favor of progressive challengers, sometimes without a full accounting of the newcomer's record. Rep. Haley Stevens, the incumbent El-Sayed defeated, was a known quantity. El-Sayed's animal control tenure, by contrast, is only now getting a full public airing in a general-election context.
Michigan's Senate race is one of several contests where Democrats face self-inflicted vulnerabilities. Senate hopes have dimmed for the party across multiple battleground states, and a nominee who presided over a shelter where animals died of neglect, and whose department had to be restrained by a federal court, gives Republicans an easy line of attack that cuts across partisan lines.
The progressive wing's growing influence in Democratic primaries has alarmed even some party veterans, who have warned that nominating candidates with thin or controversial records could hand winnable seats to Republicans.
Several gaps in the record remain. The shelter never publicly released its 2016 euthanasia figures, the Daily Mail had to obtain them independently. El-Sayed's campaign has not explained why. The campaign's claim that nearly 80% of animals were eventually placed in homes lacks a clear timeframe, making it difficult to evaluate against the documented kill rates from 2015 and 2016.
The exact trigger for the story's resurgence on social media is also unclear. Whether a new report, a political opposition research effort, or organic sharing drove the renewed attention, the underlying facts, the lawsuit, the settlement, the federal court order, the euthanasia numbers, are documented.
Michigan's progressive shift has already produced upheaval in its congressional delegation, with incumbents falling to left-wing challengers in recent cycles. El-Sayed's nomination fits that pattern. Whether his general-election candidacy can survive a record that even a Biden White House alumnus found hard to stomach is another question entirely.
Voters can forgive a lot from a candidate who inherited a mess. They have a harder time with one who presided over it, paid to settle the complaints, and then asked for a promotion.