ICE, Jail North, questions on McFadden’s leadership dominate Meck sheriff debate
Almost immediately in a Wednesday night debate, Sheriff Garry McFadden and former Chief Deputy Rodney Collins started arguing about their time working together.
“I don’t believe anything that he says,” Collins, who once served as McFadden’s second-in-command, said in response to a question from WSOC reporter Joe Bruno.
“If he doesn’t believe anything that I’ve said, why did I promote him twice inside the agency?” the sheriff responded, opining later that his employees had betrayed and sabotaged him.
Such feuds with subordinates are one of the challenges McFadden faces in his third run for sheriff.
Former employees have alleged misconduct and cruelty by him in public resignations. State law enforcement has opened an investigation into some accusations made against him, which McFadden described at the debate as “political.”
He leaned on his experience Wednesday night and said he had kept his promises since first being elected in 2018.
“I’m the only person who knows what it’s like to be seated as sheriff,” McFadden said, adding that others in the race could only imagine the responsibilities that come with running the agency during COVID-19, 2020’s protests and more.
The other three candidates — Collins, former Detention Officer Antwain Nance and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Sgt. Ricky Robbins — all said that better leadership is needed to resolve issues at the sheriff’s office.
Bruno and WSOC’s Erica Bryant moderated the debate at UNC Charlotte’s Dubois Center in uptown.
Candidates largely agree on recruitment, ICE
Most of the candidates said that retaining and recruiting staff at the sheriff’s office, a challenge for years, will come down to who is in charge.
“When you have as many vacancies as the sheriff’s office has right now, that is a leadership problem, and it starts at the top,” Collins said.
Advertising, competitive pay and benefits, and “growth opportunities” for employees would also help, he said.
Nance and Robbins agreed with him that a responsible sheriff is important to getting and keeping employees.
“It starts with the culture. … People will make sure that they come to work and do their job when they feel supported, when they’re not threatened if something happens,” Robbins said.
McFadden said negative news coverage has made recruitment difficult, and that all law enforcement agencies are struggling to hire from the same pool of people.
“Nobody wants to work in law enforcement now because of what’s happening in the media,” he said.
With two bills passed into law in Raleigh, whoever is sheriff after the election will have to hold some detainees for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Candidates said they would follow those laws — but they would not do much more.
“We have to follow the law, so we will follow the law,” Nance said. “But as far as going above and beyond, we will not do that, because the sheriff’s office is not an immigration enforcement agency.”
McFadden said that since he met with ICE officials in October, agents have been following his process for picking up detainees.
“This is why you don’t see ICE running around the courthouse with masks,” the sheriff said.
Jail North a priority for Robbins
Robbins again said Wednesday night that he would prioritize reopening Jail North, the county’s shuttered juvenile jail. It’s one of the main issues of his campaign.
McFadden opened the facility in 2019. It closed in 2022 because of staffing issues. Detention officers were moved from there to the adult jail in uptown. McFadden again said Wednesday that reopening the facility would not be easy, even if he wants to do so. He would need to hire more than 90 people to work inside it, he said.
“This is not a thing that we can wave a wand, it’s going to be fixed overnight,” Robbins said. “But I know that in Mecklenburg County, the largest county in the state, there’s no reason why we cannot get back on deck.”
Collins said that juvenile detention is a state responsibility, and pointed to another former juvenile detention center in the county that he said closed because it was too cost-prohibitive. Jail North suffered the same fate despite his warnings to McFadden, he said.
“I would be an advocate for the state being able to construct, staff and operate their own facility here in Mecklenburg,” Collins said. “I’d be willing to leverage whatever relationships I have to do that.”
The primary will be March 3. With no Republican running, whoever wins will be sheriff.
Ryan Oehrli covers criminal justice in the Charlotte region for The Charlotte Observer. His work is produced with financial support from the nonprofit The Just Trust. The Observer maintains full editorial control of its journalism.
This story was originally published January 29, 2026 at 5:00 AM.