MECKLENBURG COUNTY, N.C. — On Friday, Feb. 11 the Mecklenburg County Sheriff's Office held a press conference in response to the most recent North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services investigation findings.
"The Mecklenburg County Jail is not closing and we have not received any paperwork from anybody talking about depopulation, although it was talked about and mentioned and we started towards that," Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden stated boldly during the press conference. "But we have no paperwork to say depopulate our detention center to a certain point."
Those findings detailed in great length how the Mecklenburg County Detention Center failed to meet minimum supervision requirements. This comes after a WCNC Charlotte investigation brought to light an increase in violent attacks against guards and staffing shortage issues that resulted in a lack of inmate supervision on a consistent basis.
"It's not an enforcement," McFadden said. "It is a correction measure and we welcome those corrective measures."
The sheriff stated he believed the Mecklenburg County Jail is a safe place and attributed many of the noted staffing shortage issues in the report to COVID-19 and the 'Great Resignation.'
"Mecklenburg County Jail is a safe place," McFadden said. "Mecklenburg County Detention Center, as I call it, is a great place and we give great care to our staff and our residents. And here's why. We've had over 1,200 COVID positive cases inside our detention center, over 1,200. Not one single resident has passed; 1,200 cases. So are we doing a better job than Novant? Are we doing a better job than Atrium? I would say yes because here we try to take care of our residents."
After WCNC Charlotte's investigation in December, the Fraternal Order of Police filed a formal complaint with the NCDHHS requesting an investigation and on Feb. 10, WCNC Charlotte received the detailed results from the complaint investigation.
The inspection, which included a biannual and complaint investigation found the detention center failed to maintain enough staffing to keep the jail safe. On multiple days from March 2021 until Dec. 2021, the inspection noted the detention center was understaffed by as many as 27 people.
Mecklenburg Co. Detention Center is now on the clock
The sheriff's office now has until March 11 to fix the issues identified in the report. NCDHHS is requesting a plan of correction to be submitted, that plan must identify what corrective measures will be made, what systemic changes will be made to prevent problems in the future, how the corrective actions will be monitored, and dates by when these actions will be completed.
"We are confident we're going to answer them well within 60 days well before the 60 days because we've been working on it well before the 60 days," McFadden said. "And we've always been working on it."
WCNC Charlotte spoke to a man who was released from the detention center Friday afternoon, about an hour after Sheriff McFadden's news conference.
He asked not to be identified to discuss his overnight experience inside the facility.
"They were going to start a fight in there, and there was only one police officer there, a girl," the man said. "I guess it was too much for her so she had to call back-up."
The man said he's had prior experiences inside the detention center.
"It's worse today," the man said. "Everything's crowded. People don't get no room or anything."
Daniel Redmond, the vice president of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Fraternal Order of Police Lodge #9, which represents county deputies, disagreed with the sheriff blaming staffing shortages on the "Great Resignation."
"It's the toxic culture that has been created and has continued to permeate since December 2018," Redmond said.
He said the FOP does credit to the sheriff for there being no assaults on detention center staff since last November, but he said changes should've been made months ago.
"It shouldn’t have gotten to this extreme nor should it have taken this long and a complaint to the state and the state stepping in to do this," Redmond said. "This should've been done months ago, and that's really the message that should be taken away from this."
On Feb. 10, the sheriff's office released the following statement as a response to the findings:
The Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office continues to take corrective actions to maintain the safety and security of staff and residents at the Mecklenburg County Detention Center Central (MCDCC). Prior to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services inspection, MCSO began addressing staffing shortages at MCDCC by reducing the juvenile population and reallocating personnel from the Mecklenburg County Juvenile Detention Center to the MCDCC.
MCSO created a new specialized Tactical Response Unit (TRU) to address troublesome areas within the detention center and to enhance the safety and security of personnel and residents. This team of specially trained officers are tasked with mass searches, cell extractions, and deal with uncooperative and violent offenders. As a result of their efforts, contraband including homemade weapons have been found and confiscated within the facility and assaults have decreased.
MCSO has also implemented a new overtime policy to ensure adequate staff is inside the detention center to respond to requests or calls for assistance. Since the implementation of this policy, we have not had personnel working extended hours and have been able to operate much more efficiently because we have an adequate number of personnel.
Sheriff McFadden said, “We are continuing to proactively address all of the issues in the detention center and I’m really proud of the efforts being made by my staff and the collaborative approach by other key criminal justice stakeholders as we work through our staffing challenges.”
On December 21, 2021, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services Division of Health Service Regulation (DHSR) Construction Section Jails and Detention Unit conducted a bi-annual inspection and a complaint investigation to determine compliance. In response to the inspection and investigation, the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office will continue taking corrective actions and will submit a plan of correction on each deficiency noted inDHSR report received on February 9th by the March 11, 2022, deadline as specified in their correspondence.
If for whatever reason the sheriff's office is unable to meet the March 11 deadline, NCDHHS said Sheriff McFadden would be required to submit a written justification as to why the deadline was not met.
Contact Nate Morabito at nmorabito@wcnc.com and follow him on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram
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