Audio: Mecklenburg Sheriff McFadden said white captain was better than Black captains
Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden disparaged staff members and said he would never trust them, an audio recording obtained by The Charlotte Observer shows.
“I said, let me tell you this. I’ll tell you this in front of Chief White and Chief Collins: I will never, ever trust you ... Here’s what I need from you. Johnny on the spot every day — give me what I need every day — and we’re good,” McFadden said, apparently referencing Telisa White, who oversees the county jail, and former Chief Deputy Rodney Collins.
“But that captain — that white, cracker captain — is better than the other seven captains upstairs,” McFadden continued in the recording. He did not name that captain but said in the recording that the seven other captains were Black.
Of Collins, he said, “I don’t know who that n**** is.”
Former Chief Deputy Kevin Canty provided the recording, which someone else shared with him, after a resignation on Nov. 1 that went public.
The date of the recording and the context of who was in the conversation other than the sheriff is unclear. Canty said he was told the recording was of the sheriff meeting with some Black employees.
He said the recording shows a pattern. Canty has alleged that McFadden is verbally abusive to staff, racist and behaves in a way unbecoming of a sheriff.
McFadden spoke to a graduating class of new detention center staff on Friday, and focused his remarks on the allegations against him.
“Racism? Find it,” McFadden said. “Something I deal with all my life, each and every day? Racism? Am I direct? Absolutely. My staff will tell you. I ask a direct question and I’m looking for a direct answer. That’s what I’m looking for. Not to live in fear of me, but live with me each and every day.”
McFadden has declined to be interviewed about Canty’s letter or allegations and did not respond to a request for comment on Friday. McFadden’s public information staff did not respond to a request Friday with specific questions about the allegations.
Canty went to work for the sheriff in February. He lasted less than a year before McFadden warned he was going to fire him. Before that, Canty worked at the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department and as a supervisor at the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation.
Canty also heard McFadden refer to SBI Director Bob Schurmeier as a “cracker,” he said in an interview Thursday.
Canty said he first started writing his resignation letter in June, when he shared his concerns with the sheriff during a meeting, he said. By Canty’s account, McFadden asked him to name five times he had insulted staff. Canty’s response to the sheriff: Every time the sheriff’s executive team met.
McFadden doing so is “the norm,” Canty told the Observer. Staff members have gone to therapy over McFadden, missed sleep and been afraid to come to work, he said.
“It’s just disgraceful,” the former chief deputy said.
Later in his speech to recruits Friday, McFadden added, “Let nobody tell you that we’re not a great agency. And we’ll be greater and better moving forward. Why? Because God sent me here for a reason, and if I’m the sacrificial lamb to upset the word ‘racism’ in America, so be it. God gave up his only son. And I told somebody that: ‘I may be the sacrificial lamb.’ But when I lay my head down, you know what I’m going to say? I did what I needed to do.”
Sheriffs’ Association concerned about comments
The North Carolina Sheriffs’ Association issued a statement Friday saying that under its bylaws, its governing board voted unanimously to “inquire further” into McFadden’s comments.
The association “is aware of racially charged comments allegedly made by Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden that shock the conscience,” read a statement from the association’s executive committee. “The comments made on the recording are inflammatory, racially derogatory, insulting, and offensive.”
The statement continued: “The Association believes sheriffs are and should continue to be held to the highest standards of professionalism, ethics, principles, and morals and should serve their communities regardless of race, color, national origin, religion, or sex. Racially charged comments certainly do not meet those standards.”
Other concerns
The former chief deputy said he heard complaints about the sheriff when he worked as a special agent for the State Bureau of Investigation, overseeing the Charlotte region. Though he was concerned, nothing amounted to a criminal investigation, he said.
In 2021, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Fraternal Order of Police criticized McFadden and shared anonymous letters from sheriff’s office employees, alleging negligence as inmate attacks on detention officers rose. The FOP’s letter said that McFadden called employees “slaves” and accused him of saying that he needed to bring them out of a “plantation mentality.”
“While speaking for hours on end, McFadden never takes responsibility for any of the dire circumstances that are occurring… He looks for and lays the blame on everyone else, including his closest associates, except himself,” one anonymous employee wrote in the package the Fraternal Order of Police compiled and made public in 2021. “McFadden has not held one meeting that had a positive tone in nature that was not accusatory or demeaning to his supervisory staff.”
Local Fraternal Order of Police President Daniel Redford said McFadden’s behavior is no secret.
“It’s been out there. People just don’t care enough to pay attention to it,” he said.
Mecklenburg County Commissioner Vilma Leake, who represents the southwestern part of the county, told the Observer Friday that McFadden has been giving her the cold shoulder for about a year. She has asked him about some funding requests, she said.
“One of the things he asked for was a (renovated) office, and I was concerned about that,” she said. “Why do we need a new office? And who’s going to pay for the office? And how much is it going to be utilized? Those are basic questions — that I can’t see (why) anybody would get upset about — that a commissioner is asking.”
She’s found his silent treatment “very unprofessional,” she said.
“The general public ought to know how we are spending their money — or our money because I’m a taxpayer, too,” she added.
This story was originally published November 8, 2024 at 3:22 PM.