Mecklenburg County deputies are doing traffic stops. What’s the cost?
Five deputies and a supervisor at the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office are doing something that isn’t required of the agency: traditional law enforcement.
In Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, primary law enforcement like handling emergencies, homicides, robberies and burglaries, is handled almost exclusively by the police department. That’s different from most of North Carolina, where sheriff’s offices do patrols and criminal investigations.
The sheriff’s office and its 592 deputies and detention staff are tasked with protecting the county courthouse and staffing the jail. Almost 200 civilian employees work other jobs at the agency, and 55 trainees are preparing to transfer to full-time positions.
But Sheriff Garry McFadden, a longtime homicide detective at the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department before he was elected in 2018, has envisioned a full-service law enforcement agency.
For now, deputies working on the agency’s traffic enforcement unit are overseeing traffic stops, writing tickets and investigating crashes.
They have conducted almost 30 crash investigations so far this year, said Sgt. Sheraton Horne, who oversees the unit.
“We’re pretty much trying to catch up and get on track and just do what law enforcement officers are supposed to do out here,” he said of the unit, which he said started in 2024.
What they’re doing
Deputies are working throughout Mecklenburg County, Horne said. The team works with CMPD sometimes on operations, he said, and tries to cut down speeding in areas where there’s a high volume of crashes or fatalities. They have also worked with the Matthews Police Department.
Some of the places deputies have spent time at lately include Park Road, The Plaza, John Belk Freeway, Fairview Road and West Sugar Creek Road, he said.
On the job, deputies are finding drugs, people who are intoxicated and others who are driving without a license, Horne said.
His hope is to grow the team to 10 deputies, he said, and allow for more training, especially on crash investigations. Today, investigations are mostly focused on property damage. The North Carolina Highway Patrol already investigates crashes on interstates and the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department already investigates crashes in the city and county.
“But we want to get training where we can start doing fatalities (investigations), that sort of thing,” the sergeant said.
The job requires some versatility, one deputy working on the team said, citing times people have fled or had drugs in the car.
“You never know what you’re going to get,” Deputy Theodore Warren said of the job day-to-day.
What’s the cost?
The traffic enforcement unit isn’t a formal “unit,” sheriff’s office spokesperson Sarah Mastouri said. It’s an informal team within the sheriff’s office’s field operations division. That division also serves warrants and restraining orders, and escorts dignitaries through traffic.
Deputies are making between $63,000 and $90,000. Horne makes over $97,000.
Another spokesperson for the sheriff’s office, Bradley Smith, said salaries and benefits for the traffic team cost the sheriff’s office an estimated $682,307. A total of $14,122,578, he said, is allotted to field operations.
Smith added that some other expenses have been covered in ways that did not cost taxpayers.
In 2021 and 2022, the sheriff’s office bought and upfitted four Dodge Durgangos for $161,113. In 2024 and into 2025, a fifth was bought and upfitted for $64,911. That money came from a special revenue fund, he said.
Funding from the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program paid for “various equipment and items” at the price of $6,732, Smith said.
The traffic unit helps with other field operations, like evictions, Horne said.