Michigan Democratic Senate hopeful Abdul El-Sayed has built his campaign around a claim that he rebuilt Wayne Countys troubled juvenile detention center from the studs, yet official records and eyewitness accounts depict a facility mired in filth, mismanagement, and alleged abuse during his watch.
According to The Washington Free Beacon, court filings, whistleblower complaints, and state health inspection reports sharply undercut the polished narrative El-Sayed now offers to primary voters.
Those documents show that after he declared a sweeping public health emergency order in March 2023an order that placed him in operational control of the Wayne County Juvenile Detention Facility and unlocked $10 million in emergency taxpayer fundingstate investigators repeatedly found conditions that would shock most parents.
Inspectors documented units flooded with sewage and garbage, walls smeared with dried feces and bodily fluids, and basic hygiene so neglected that juveniles were not able to brush their teeth daily or shower, even as El-Sayed publicly touted his supposed turnaround of the facility.
The emergency order, which El-Sayed has framed as proof of his executive competence, was lifted in June 2023 after county officials claimed they had resolved the most urgent problems, particularly overcrowding.
El-Sayed boasted that he had hired dozens of new staff and that the facility was finally on a path to reform, even floating plans to build in-facility mental health treatment for long-term youth detainees.
Yet just three months later, in September 2023, state regulators revoked the centers full operational license and placed it on probationary status, concluding that the facility remained not in compliance with all applicable licensing statutes and rules.
These findings stand in stark contrast to the image El-Sayed now promotes as he battles congresswoman Haley Stevens and state senator Mallory McMorrow in a closely watched Democratic primary.
Unlike his rivals, El-Sayed has never held elected office, so he has leaned heavily on his brief tenure as Wayne Countys health chief as evidence that he can govern, insisting that he took over a facility in emergency and transformed its operations.
We worked with the county executive to declare a public health state of emergency. For three months we rebuilt from the ground up the operations in that facility, El-Sayed told the Michigan Chronicle in May, presenting himself as a hands-on reformer.
We upgraded the food quality three times over, he added, before later boasting on social media that he led the rebuild from the studs, language that suggests a comprehensive overhaul rather than the chaotic reality described in state reports.
El-Sayeds campaign declined to respond to questions about the discrepancies between his rhetoric and the official record, leaving voters to weigh his claims against the documented conditions at the juvenile center. He had been brought in to replace the outgoing director of the Wayne County Health, Human, and Veterans Services Department in December 2022, initially as a consultant, before formally assuming the role on March 1, 2023.
Within two weeks of his official start date, the facility was rocked by a brutal assault that would trigger the emergency declaration El-Sayed now cites as a political credential. On March 14 and 15, a 12-year-old boy was viciously beaten and anally gang raped by a group of fellow detainees who, according to a later lawsuit filed by the childs mother, had been left unsupervised by staff in a setting that was supposed to be secure.
The attack prompted El-Sayed and Wayne County executive Warren Evans, a Democrat, to issue a joint public health emergency order citing violent incidents, accusations of physical and sexual assaults, [and] an environment that is dangerous and not conducive to mental, physical or general health. The declaration created an incident command structure that reported directly to El-Sayed and authorized him to spend $10 million in emergency funds to expedite action to adequately staff and provide therapeutic services in the facility, effectively giving him broad authority over the centers operations.
At the same time, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) launched its own investigation into the facilitys conditions. On March 23, 2023just two days after the emergency order took effecta state investigator toured the center and reported poor living conditions in units flooded with sewage and garbage, a description more reminiscent of a failed state than a county-run juvenile facility.
One housing unit, or pod, was found with smeared and dried feces on the walls and bodily fluids splattered on the walls, according to the investigators report.
The middle bedroom had dried feces in the air vent. Trash was on the floor, the report continued, painting a picture of systemic neglect rather than a facility in the midst of a serious, well-managed reform effort.
County officials assured the investigator that the pod had been cleaned the following day, suggesting that the emergency order was already producing improvements.
But when the investigator returned on March 30, the walls continued to have the same dried and smeared feces on the wall as well as other bodily fluids, and a subsequent visit on April 20 found that the same walls have not been cleaned yet, indicating that even the most basic sanitation was not being enforced.
Pod C had youth feces on the air vents in a bedroom that was being occupied by Youth A, the investigator wrote in a formal report sent to Wayne County, documenting conditions that would be unacceptable in any correctional setting, let alone one housing minors.
Youth A has been in that room for over three months with no one cleaning or disinfecting the room. The walls outside of his room also had dried feces and bodily fluids on it. Even after reporting this information it was not cleaned or disinfected in a safe manner, the report stated, suggesting a culture of indifference that persisted despite the emergency declaration.
The same investigation found that juveniles lacked basic hygiene supplies, including toothbrushes, toothpaste, and deodorant, and that some detainees went as long as a week and a half without being allowed to shower.
Youth D reported that they sometimes don't have toilet paper or only just a few sheets, the investigator noted, underscoring how far the facility fell short of even minimal standards of care.
MDHHS formally submitted its investigative findings in September 2023, concluding that the Wayne County Juvenile Detention Facility was not in compliance with all applicable licensing statutes and rules and placing it on a six-month probation.
MDHHS spokesman Bob Wheaton told the Detroit News that while the county had made progress during the public health emergency, it still needed to improve more to meet licensing requirements, a diplomatic way of saying that the problems remained serious.
MDHHS will maintain its 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week presence at Wayne County Juvenile Detention Center and will continue to work collaboratively with the county so it can make the changes needed to have its license restored to regular status and for the good of the youth there, Wheaton said, signaling that state officials did not trust the county to manage the facility without constant oversight.
That ongoing state presence stands in tension with El-Sayeds campaign-trail narrative of a crisis resolved and a system rebuilt under his leadership.
Months earlier, in June 2023, when Wayne County lifted the emergency order after claiming to have addressed staffing and overcrowding conditions, El-Sayed had painted a far rosier picture in an interview with CBS News.
He said the hiring of 54 additional staff members had allowed the facility to reduce the number of juveniles in each pod from 50 to no more than 20, a change he presented as evidence that the emergency intervention was working as intended.
Wayne County Commission chair Alisha Bell echoed that upbeat assessment, declaring that the facility was operating the way it's supposed to operate.
With overcrowding supposedly under control, El-Sayed said the county could now turn to longer-term reforms, including building an in-facility mental health treatment for youths who have been adjudicated, meaning they require a long-term residential stay bed, but haven't necessarily gotten one, a promise that played well with progressive advocates of expanded government services.
Despite those assurances, the facility continued to be dogged by serious allegations of misconduct and neglect during and after El-Sayeds tenure.
He ultimately left his position as director of the county health department in April 2025, but the controversies that unfolded on his watch have followed him into the Senate race, raising questions about accountability and competence.
Two nurses hired during his time in charge, Tanzy Huddleston and Shermanstine Morrow, alleged that detainees were given expired medications and that staff failed to properly document medical treatments, lapses that could endanger vulnerable youths.
They filed a whistleblower lawsuit against the county in December 2023, claiming they were fired in retaliation for reporting their concerns to supervisors, a familiar pattern in bureaucracies where protecting the institution often takes precedence over protecting individuals.
In April 2024, the facility was again thrust into the spotlight when a female juvenile detention specialist was arrested for sexually assaulting two male detainees, one 16 and the other 17.
She was convicted two months after El-Sayed resigned as county health director and later sentenced to between 71 months and 15 years in prison, a stark reminder that the environment inside the center remained dangerous long after the emergency order and the accompanying rhetoric of reform.
One of those victims has since sued the detention center, arguing that county officials and facility staff failed in their basic duty to protect him from harm.
His complaint specifically cites El-Sayeds public health emergency order, along with the subsequent whistleblower allegations and assault cases, as evidence that the county fostered an atmosphere and widespread culture of deliberate indifference to the protection of the civil rights, a damning charge for any public official seeking higher office.
For Michigan voters, especially those who believe in limited government and personal accountability, the gap between El-Sayeds campaign narrative and the documented reality at Wayne Countys juvenile facility raises serious concerns about his fitness for federal office.
He was given extraordinary authority, substantial taxpayer resources, and a clear mandate to fix a broken system, yet state records show that under his watch, children remained in squalid conditions, basic hygiene was neglected, and serious abuses continued to surface.
As Democrats rally behind a candidate who touts expansive government intervention as the solution to social ills, the Wayne County episode offers a cautionary tale about what happens when progressive rhetoric collides with the hard work of governing.
The question now is whether primary voters will look past the polished talking points and examine how El-Sayed actually used the power he was givenor failed to use itwhen vulnerable children depended on him most.
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