Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden announces reelection campaign
After speculating out loud whether he should do it, Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden said he is running for reelection next year.
“True leadership is tested not in moments of comfort, but in seasons of challenge — when betrayal cuts deep, loyalty is questioned and dishonesty threatens the foundation of trust,” he said in a news release announcing his run.
For the last year, McFadden has been followed by controversy.
Former high-ranking employees have quit the sheriff’s office, often in public fashion, and accused him of being a vindictive and narcissistic boss.
The sheriff is now highlighting his tenure during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“While other systems struggled, we kept our detention facilities safe and humane — without a single COVID-related death among those incarcerated,” he said in the news release.
He also pointed to his public-facing approach when protesters took to the streets in 2020 after George Floyd’s murder.
“When emotions overflowed into the streets, I didn’t hide behind my office walls or issue statements from afar,” he said. “I walked among the people — listening, speaking, and seeking to understand,” he said. “We prioritized dialogue and de-escalation over force, leading me to discontinue the use of tear gas by deputies. Accountability is not anti-law enforcement — it is the foundation of justice.”
He faces three competitors in the March Democratic primary: former Chief Deputy Rodney Collins, former Detention Officer Antwain Nance and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Sgt. Ricky Robbins.
McFadden’s announcement came just as news broke that a man in the county jail died after being given the wrong medication.
In a Facebook post on Thursday, the sheriff called himself “a man of his word.” He said that he’s delivered on promises to stop holding teenagers in solitary confinement, allowed family members to visit inmates in person and strengthened the sheriff’s office’s relationship with the public, among other things.
Sheriff causes controversy
Since he was first elected in 2018, McFadden has been known for speaking his mind.
He’s decried jail inspectors who found supervision failures at his facility, criticized the news media and gotten into public arguments with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. (Just recently, the sheriff said his relationship with ICE had become more productive after he met with local supervisors at that agency.)
But tension from within the sheriff’s office boiled over and reached the public in November 2024, when then-Chief Deputy Kevin Canty resigned, sent McFadden a harsh resignation letter and copied the entire sheriff’s office to the email.
In an audio recording that The Charlotte Observer and other news outlets published soon after, McFadden berated his staff and called them untrustworthy. He also called a white captain a “cracker.”
His former business director alleged the sheriff fired her as retaliation after she refused to alter records detailing his travel expenses.
In January, the Observer detailed in a special report how seven former employees accused the sheriff of abusing his power. In another audio recording obtained by the Observer, McFadden lamented that his staff did not inform him about problems inside the county jail.
His former chief of detention, Telisa White, seconded that he was not a good leader in an interview with the Observer last month.
McFadden did not immediately answer phone calls or messages on Thursday about his re-election bid.
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 November 6, 2025 at 8:54 AM.