NEWS & OPINION FEATURE
ON THE INSIDE COVID-19 maginifies existing issues within Mecklenburg County jail
to take specific actions “to have order and control restored in the jail.” On Jan. 3, the NC Department of Health and Human Services released a report recommending that MCSO depopulate the jail by nearly 33% from 1,407 incarcerated people to less than 1,000. In the report, Chris Wood, chief jail inspector with NC DHHS Division of Health Service Regulation, wrote, “Staffing shortages exist that pose an
certain policies and procedures. For Abraham, who said she was forced into an early retirement in March 2021, this all comes back to the way McFadden has approached his position since his swearing in on Dec. 4, 2018. “What he don’t realize, the people who work under you, they make you or break you,” Abraham told Queen City Nerve. “You’re only as good as your crew is, but he came in there so arrogant and just didn’t care.”
Pg. 4 JAN 12 - JAN 25, 2022 - QCNERVE.COM
BY RYAN PITKIN
The first time Hope Abraham laid eyes on Mcklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden was directly following his swearing in on Dec. 4, 2018. McFadden was doing his rounds to introduce himself to all his new officers and staff. Abraham, then a 22-year veteran of the Mecklenburg County Sheriff ’s Office, was working at what was then called Jail North, where she would pick up overtime shifts on top of her normal shifts at the central jail in Uptown Charlotte. Her first impression of her new boss was not great. According to Abraham and several other detention officers who have told similar stories, McFadden’s first speech was a challenge to his staff. “He got up in front of everybody, he said ‘Who don’t want to be here? Let me know now so I can go ahead and give you your walking papers.’ I was like, ‘Well damn, this is how you start off?’ It was very arrogant.” McFadden’s introduction speeches don’t all that out of the ordinary for an incoming sheriff who wanted to change the culture in the department. In fact, McFadden enjoyed plenty of popularity as he began his term, following through on his campaign promise to end the 287g program that partnered MCSO with ICE and pushing through progressive policies to help people incarcerated in his jails. In what would have been unheard of during previous administrations, local activist groups called a press conference in January 2019 to mark McFadden’s first 30 days in office and thank him for ending 287g. Queen City Nerve recognized him as “Best Rabble Rouser” in our 2019 Best in the Nest awards, citing his proclivity to shake up the status quo in law enforcement. However, happenings over the past year have cast McFadden’s tenure in a new light, as violent incidents inside the Uptown jail have become more frequent and dozens of former staff members have begun to speak out against his policies. In late 2021, 11 former staff members sent an open letter to local elected officials calling on them
sworn into office, announced her candidacy for sheriff. Though now employed by the Gaston County Sheriff ’s Office, Hicks told Queen City Nerve she could no longer stand by while her former MCSO colleagues were attacked, incarcerated people were placed in unsafe conditions, and the department she once took pride in was allowed to fall into disrepute. Hicks said she has stayed in close touch with people who are still employed in MCSO facilities, and decided to run due to calls from those who used to work under her calling on her to do so. “These people are like family, and they’re suffering greatly,” she said. “I just had to do something. I don’t know where it will go, but people need people that know the operation. People need people that care about the people that run the operation and the people that are incarcerated, and are going to do it in the most humane and dignified way. This is not happening right now. People are reaching out and I have to do something.”
Attacks increase on the inside
AUJIENA HICKS ANNOUNCES HER CANDIDACY FOR SHERIFF ON JAN. 7. PHOTO COURTESY OF WCCB CHARLOTTE
imminent threat to safety of the inmates and staff at [Mecklenburg County Jail Central].” While McFadden has responded to the report by blaming COVID-19 outbreaks and pointing to similar staffing shortages across the country, the NC DHHS report also cites recent interviews in which McFadden has blamed staff for not complying with
Now as McFadden approaches his first reelection campaign and a crisis in his jail, at least one former MCSO staff member has announced their intentions to run against him. On Jan. 7, former MCSO assistant facility commander Aujiena Hicks, who was fired by McFadden in December 2018 before he was even
Hicks said she had only met McFadden once in passing before learning he was running for sheriff. She had no reason to believe her job was in trouble when he was elected in November 2018, just as she marked her 18th anniversary working with MCSO. However, on the day before McFadden was sworn in, she began to see posts from colleagues who were being called into the jail one by one and let go. Soon she got a call asking her to come in. “Garry didn’t talk to me about it, he sent the chiefs to do that, and they were very upset about it,” she recalled. “They didn’t understand it themselves.” In a termination letter signed by McFadden on Dec. 3, 2018, McFadden writes that Hicks’ services are no longer required, and unemployment paperwork from the NC Department of Commerce states the reason for her termination as “lack of work.” Though McFadden turned down requests for an interview for this story, MCSO did respond to a request for comment on specific claims and concerns, including the firing of Hicks and others before McFadden took office. An MCSO spokesperson cited NC law that gives sheriffs the exclusive right to hire, discharge, and supervise the employees in their respective office and to do so “at will,” which means they can legally let go of employees without giving them a reason. Within three days after her firing, Hicks had a job at Gaston County Sheriff ’s Office. She brought over another person who had just been let go, and another the next week. She estimates that in the
