Leaky roof. Exposed wires. Mecklenburg sheriff says county training academy unsafe
When detention officer recruits walk into the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office training facility on their first day, a proclamation above the doorway greets them.
“Through these doors walk the world’s best employees,” vinyl stickers spell out on the glass of the Spector Drive academy 10 minutes north of uptown.
Inside, recruits also take heed not to kick crumbling crown molding off the wall. Sergeants extinguish fires in shooting ranges where exposed electrical wires are vulnerable to the leaky roof. New recruits memorize the oath of office beside urinals in the holding room of a former jail. They use the drawers of old inmate bunk beds as makeshift lockers.
Sheriff Garry McFadden says he and sheriffs before him pleaded for a new training facility. And the facility drawing concerns would be the perfect location for a new training site, three Mecklenburg trainers told The Charlotte Observer. But the sheriff’s department running the largest county detention center in North Carolina doesn’t have money to demolish and rebuild, and it won’t in the next fiscal year either.
Weapons trainer and shooting range manager Sgt. Corell Anderson put it bluntly: “It’s an embarrassment.”
The 350,000 rounds fired annually leave holes in concrete walls and the metallic smell of gunpowder in the air. Falling soundproof foam, a hanging cable and splintering wood beams are courtesy of the more than 500 recruits, detention officers, federal and IRS agents who use the 20-year-old range annually, Anderson said.
“The firing range is the highest liability area here. When there are officer-involved shootings ... the first question asked is, ‘Were they properly trained?’” Anderson said. “If we don’t have the proper tools and the proper equipment to train them, then how are they going to get properly trained? If we can’t get a new facility, at least get this facility fixed.”
Cpt. Marissa Hudley leads training at the facility and would love to host training for other agencies.
“But bring them to what? What are we bringing them to?” she said. “We have outdated equipment, technology and limited space.”
No funding for a new facility through 2028
Mecklenburg County Commissioners last week passed a $4 billion capital improvement plan expected to fund dozens of new libraries, parks and schools through 2028, partly with revenue from a 1.6-cent tax rate hike.
There’s money for a training academy. But it’s a regional public safety facility at Central Piedmont Community College — a compromise some county leaders say should be just fine.
About $86.6 million for a training facility specific to the sheriff’s office was excluded from the budget.
“CPCC has indicated that they anticipate that the sheriff’s office would use this facility and they are absolutely welcome to them using the facility for their training,” County Manager Dena Diorio said June 1 after Commissioner Elaine Powell asked about the decision.
McFadden worries the CPCC facility won’t have enough firing range space and availability for his agency to rely on. He says work done by the sheriff’s office has earned it a space to call its own — and he needs more than one classroom for recruits.
Powell unsuccessfully attempted to include funding for the sheriff’s desired facility during a “straw vote” meeting before the official budget adoption. She tried again last week to do the same.
“We voted on these items several times and they all failed,” Chairman George Dunlap said about Powell’s 11th-hour attempt. “I think it’s rather arrogant to come in here tonight and attempt to do the very same thing.”
There’s potentially room for county, CPCC and the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department to combine forces for training in the future, Dunlap said.
“Maybe they need to get together and have some conversation because everybody doesn’t need a training facility that basically does the same thing,” Dunlap said. “Why should the citizens of Mecklenburg County fund three separate training facilities?”
In the meantime, county engineer Odell Turner is doing his best to bring relief to the recruits in combat training with no air conditioning before summer. Turner works for a private maintenance company that the sheriff’s office contracts.
“It’s falling apart. Right now, we’re trying to get the HVAC going back,” Turner said Thursday, facing a line of toilet stalls in a former holding cell. “Then, the water is hard to maintain. If you don’t have anybody constantly flushing and moving the drains, it’s going to be hard to maintain.”
‘We’re making it work’
Even with limited space and technology, 28 new detention officers graduated from what they endearingly called “jail school” at an award ceremony Thursday.
After weeks of physical training, pepper spray to the eyes and hours of instruction, class speaker Trinity Williams referred to her platoon as “lifers” with tears in her eyes. The new detention officers broke a hard exterior facade after an hourlong ceremony, yelling “MCSO, woo!”
Family and friends pinned shiny badges on their loved ones shortly after they recited the oath of office in the Calvary Baptist Church sanctuary.
It concerns McFadden and his staff that Muslim and atheist recruits graduate in a Christian church, as he’s pushed to make the department more inclusive, but he said when the government center is taken, he doesn’t have another space or dedicated funding to rent a secular space.
“We want our own space,” McFadden said. “We want to put our symbol on it. We want to put our touch on it.”
McFadden plans to add funding for a MCSO facility on to the capital investment plan next year. Until then, they’re planning on training detention officers in the existing space.
Hudley hopes to one day have capacity to watch larger classes graduate on a stage in a training center she’s proud of.
For now, “it’s not ideal but we’re making it work.”
This story was originally published June 13, 2023 at 6:00 AM.
