Abdul El-Sayed, a candidate in the 2026 Democratic primary for Michigan’s open Senate seat, was on the board of an anti-police group when it organized Detroit protests that turned deadly in May 2020, public disclosure records reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon show.
El-Sayed served as a board member of Michigan United from 2019 through 2020, as its president in 2021, again as a board member in 2022, and as president once more in 2023, according to the organization’s tax disclosure filings. During this time, the group advocated for the movement to defund the police, compared cops to “slave catchers,” and organized a May 29, 2020, demonstration outside the Detroit Police Department’s headquarters that spiraled into vandalism and violence.
The event, cohosted with a litany of other left-wing extremist groups, drew an estimated 1,000 protesters. Though it began as a peaceful demonstration, it soon devolved into a riot, with activists defacing police cars and attacking officers with bottles, rocks, and other makeshift weapons, resulting in hospitalizations. At least 60 people were arrested, and one man was shot and killed after a gunman fired into the crowd, according to reports.
Michigan United used provocative language in its advertisements for the demonstration.
“Tomorrow we will rally in front of Detroit Police Headquarters to demand social and criminal justice,” the group wrote in a May 28, 2020, post on X alongside an advertisement for a “Rally and Picket for Justice Against Police Brutality” to “Jail Racist and Killer Police.” The ad included a list of demands, which include an “End and Abolishment of Mass Prison Incarceration” and the release of all “non violent [sic] offenders due to COVID-19.”
In X posts promoting the demonstration, Michigan United wrote, “No Justice. No Peace.”
The revelation of El-Sayed’s involvement in organizing the violent riot comes as he attempts to distance himself from his past support for the “defund the police” movement. The candidate deleted a dozen social media posts in which he denounced law enforcement, called for funding cuts, and described police as “standing armies,” CNN reported this week.
A spokesman for El-Sayed’s campaign waved away those posts, telling CNN this week that “rather than defund Police, Dr. El-Sayed is challenging government choices that defund food, healthcare, and social services while militarizing agencies like ICE in sharp contrast to Donald Trump’s presidency because real safety comes from investing in people—not in tanks and tear gas.”
El-Sayed’s leadership position with Michigan United is the latest example of his involvement with the anti-police activist movement.
On June 5, 2020, it claimed in an X post that there was “unfounded brutality of police across the country” and wrote, “#DefundPolice Invest in our communities!”
In another post in May 2020, Michigan United described the law enforcement system as a “racist and broken social infrastructure that leads to one innocent death after another.”
“We are not looking at bad apples,” the group wrote. “We are grieving the deaths of the rotten orchard.”
In 2023, Michigan United posted that police departments “mimic slave catchers of past times” and said that cities should stop “budgeting for police units like Memphis’ SCORPION Unit” and instead “budget to ensure that the safety nets & educational programs city residents rely on are funded adequately.”
El-Sayed will face off against Rep. Haley Stevens and state senator Mallory McMorrow in the Democratic primary next August, with the winner likely competing against Republican candidate and former congressman Mike Rogers in what is expected to be one of the tightest races in the country.
Representatives for El-Sayed did not respond to a Free Beacon request for comment.
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