An animal control worker in Eastpointe is caught on camera dumping dead animals at a public park, the Facebook post is now going viral.
City officials in Eastpointe tell 7 Action News, the city worker didn’t break the law, but she was reprimanded.
In the video, the animal control worker can be seen seen shoveling several dead animals into a dumpster at Kennedy Park.
Resident Jason Campbell saw the post and lives right around the corner from the park and the dumpster. He was very upset to see this happening.
"Once you get near the dumpster, within a couple of feet, you can smell the rotten carcasses, you go and look in there and there's dead animals laying in there,” said Campbell.
The dumpsters are just a short walk from playground equipment.
"Me and my boys went to the park earlier today, where you have to park your cars in the parking lot you've got to walk right past the dumpsters and get tot the playground equipment,” said Campbell.
City leaders said the animals were roadkill and not dogs or cats, because that makes a big difference in how the animals are disposed.
It is legal to dump wild animals that are roadkill in dumpsters, but they should be bagged.
The city manager, Steve Duchane, tells 7 Action News that the worker didn’t break the law, but didn’t make a good decision.
"When I saw it, I was really sorry about the choice, because it's really something that shouldn't be done,” said Duchane.
"Certainly be counseled not to do in a public park, we have a public works garage bins to put those in and we could have disposed of them safely and properly,” said Duchane.
He wants to assure residents this mistake won’t be repeated.
"It was a decision made, again, we won't take anybody overly to task, but we are going to correct it and I don't want to see that happen again,” said Duchane.
According to state law, animals like dogs and cats must be taken to animal shelter for proper disposal.
Macomb County Animal Control, which doesn’t serve Eastpointe since they have their own service, incinerates roadkill.
