New allegations against Mecklenburg sheriff affirm he is no longer fit for the role | Opinion

Since Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden took office in 2018, his office has been the subject of bad headlines, state investigations and lawsuits that have raised serious questions about his ability to lead.

Answers to those questions have emerged in a new report from The Charlotte Observer, in which former employees detail years of abuse and dysfunction at the sheriff’s office, including poor management that has created unsafe conditions for staff and inmates alike. Among the allegations: McFadden is verbally cruel and vindictive; he engages in unfair finger-pointing; and he publicly criticizes detention officers in front of inmates, putting them in danger.

The report, while damning and disturbing, is not shocking. It’s an affirmation of what we already know: that the sheriff’s office, and by extension the jail, has been plagued by dysfunction during McFadden’s tenure.

It is the latest in a string of controversies involving the environment at the sheriff’s office. The most recent wave began when McFadden’s chief deputy Kevin Canty resigned in November. His resignation letter accused McFadden of running the agency like a “third-world dictatorship” that has resulted in “pure chaos.” Shortly after, the Observer obtained an audio recording of McFadden using racially charged language to disparage both Black and white employees, which he apologized for.

But the dysfunction is about more than just working conditions. Deaths at the jail have doubled under McFadden, and the Observer reported last year that Mecklenburg County jails failed 11 out of 15 death investigations conducted by the state since 2019. The sheriff has been named in multiple lawsuits over deaths that occurred while inmates were in custody, including one that says officers did not properly observe an inmate in his cell before he died by suicide, and another that says employees at the jail failed to complete supervision rounds and ignored pleas for help from an inmate who died from fentanyl intoxication. Multiple lawsuits accuse McFadden or his employees of trying to cover up the failures.

What this week’s Observer report does affirm is that McFadden isn’t just responsible for allowing those problems to fester. He is, apparently, the source of at least some of them — a fact he seems unwilling to admit. McFadden’s response has been to deflect blame to the state inspection process, which he claims is unfairly targeting his department, or to the pandemic for inducing critical staff shortages that created unsafe conditions inside the jail. His response to reports that he called his employees racial slurs was “I’m human … I will make mistakes.”

It’s important to note that McFadden has not been accused of anything illegal, although he may have come close to it when he allegedly told his assistant to alter public records requested by the Observer, and retaliated against the employee who pointed out that doing so would be illegal.

What is clear, however, is that he’s an awful manager in a role that’s critical to public safety. As the Observer’s reporting illustrates, he’s inappropriate with employees, and he appears to wield his internal affairs division as a weapon against them. Morale is low. Staffers feel overworked and denigrated. The consequences: top employees resigning, lawsuits that point fingers directly at him, and a poorly run jail where too many inmates die.

To his credit, McFadden has excelled in some areas as sheriff. He’s refused voluntary cooperation with immigration officials, and he fulfilled his campaign promise to end solitary confinement for teenagers. He’s made genuine efforts to improve his office’s relationship with and presence in the community, and he has worked hard to reduce the stigma associated with incarceration in his jails.

But that’s not reason enough to excuse his mismanagement of the county jail, which is his biggest responsibility as sheriff, or the terrible way he apparently treats those who work for him. It’s not fair to demand perfection from our public officials, but it’s perfectly fair to demand integrity and competency.

Calling on McFadden to resign is likely a fruitless ask, given his habit of deflecting blame in the face of public scrutiny. Still, it’s become clear that he is unfit for the office he holds, in a way that has placed both his employees and inmates at risk. It’s a dereliction of the duty he promised voters he would fulfill.