We sat down with former Mecklenburg County Sheriff's Department Chief Deputy Kevin Canty to discuss why he wrote the letter: https://www.wcnc.com/article/news/loc...
Below is a partial transcript of what he said:
Canty: When I accepted the position that Garry McFadden offered, it was certainly my intent to remain at least five years. I welcome the opportunity to work from my home county from Charlotte. I retired from the SBI, and so I relished the opportunity to have more hands-on experience working with a local law enforcement agency. And so I came in with an open mind and wanted to certainly be in a position to help folks with the agency and also help my community or maybe I could. I never thought about the Mecklenburg County Sheriff's Office really because of the structure of the Mecklenburg County Sheriff's Office, and I didn't realize this until I began working for the SBI. Mecklenburg County Sheriff's Office along with Gaston County Sheriff's Office are the only two, sheriff's offices that are not full service. They don't have detectives and that's primarily because we had Mecklenburg County Police Department.
Up until about 2000, I'm sorry, 1994 when they merged with the Charlotte Police Department became CMPD and Gaston County still has a county police department, so never really thought about working for the sheriff's office until I was getting close to retirement with the SBI, and certainly I was looking for possible opportunities once I retired.
Austin Walker: Gotcha. So a few days after you were, you know, sworn in and then you, you started this position, there was actually a graduation ceremony that I looked at and within that, that speech of McFadden on the stage, he really just gives you glowing recommendations. But that relationship with him, you know, was it this letter seemed one way, was it always like this or at first? Was it very different?
Canty: So initially, it was very different and just for some background, I would encounter McFadden from time to time, especially in my capacity as the special agent in charge of the Charlotte field office with the FBI. The office often responded to in-custody death investigations and at various functions where law enforcement agency heads were present and thought I had a pretty good relationship with him. The first hint that something might be awry was actually, it's captured in a picture of my swearing-in ceremony that's been on the news that took place on, I think, it was Feb. 12, and it was during either an executive team meeting or compstat. And I remember after Garry McFadden introduced me, he began to make disparaging comments to the command staff, to the majors and other people in there, such as 'I know that you all think you're great, but you're not really great. Well, some of you are.' And so that became a common theme. And I remember when that picture was taken, when my hand was raised, I remember looking at the audience and hoping that they did not think that I thought that type of behavior and type of language and treatment of staff was appropriate. And I made it a point, was intentional when I was introduced to emphasize to them that, although I had 33 years of law enforcement experience, I realized I'd never worked for a sheriff's office, and that I look forward to working with the people who had the institutional knowledge and working alongside them. I wanted to make sure that they understood that I thought leadership should be a collaborative approach. And so, fast forwarding to that graduation ceremony, that was the first one I attended. And he uh nice things to say about me. And again, during that ceremony, after he had nice things to say about me and Chief White, he then began to make the same disparaging comments about the majors. Now, this is in front of cadets and their family members. That day is their day. And I've been to dozens of graduation ceremonies in law enforcement. That was the first time I've ever seen an agency head make disparaging comments about his executive team in such a setting.
Информация по комментариям в разработке