Speaker 1: What's going on.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It
is heard live every day from noon to three on
WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content
like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily
show prep with all the links, become a patron, go
to dpetecleanershow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button.
Get every episode for free right to your smartphone or tablet.
And again, thank you so much for your support. Mecklinburg
County Sheriff Gary not my fault. McFadden says he is
going to run for a third term next year. He
had to make that decision, by the way, before December nineteenth,
I believe was the cutoff. So we will now have
the opportunity to oust him in a Democrat primary. I
will once again probably try to vote in that Democrat. Well,
let's see twenty six.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I've got to see who's running. Because I'm unaffiliated, I
can go between either Democrat or Republican primaries. And if
you're unaffiliated, you might consider doing the same to vote
against McFadden to get him out of there. Or we
can go through another four years much like the last
eight with all of the controversies that just seem to
follow Gary McFadden around. None of it's his fault. That's
why I call him not my fault McFadden. Nothing is
ever his fault. It's always other people, disloyal staffers betraying
him left and right. Charlotte Observers story by Ryan Orley
documents some of the controversies. He has decried jail inspectors
who found that's the state jail inspectors who found supervision
failures at his facility, criticized the news media, and gotten
to public arguments with ICE. Just recently, the sheriff said
his relationship with ICE thawed. I said, okay, that's me.
Ryan Orley did not write that, but this has become
more productive after he met with local supervisors of ICE.
But attention from within the Sheriff's office boiled over and
reached the public in November twenty twenty four, when then
Chief Deputy Kevin Canty resigned, sent McFadden a harsh resignation
letter and copied the entire Sheriff's office to the email. Also,
you may recall there was an audio recording that the
Charlotte Observer and other news outlets published soon afterwards, with
McFadden berating his staff and calling 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. She had gotten
a Freedom of Information Act request from the Charlotte Observer,
and I think it was the Observer, may have been WBTV,
I forget, but local media said we want to see
the travel expenses, and he asked her to doctor the reports.
She said she wouldn't do it, and so she got fired.
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 to Lisa White,
seconded that he was not a good leader in an
interview with the Observer last month. So this is not
Gary McFadden's fault. None of these things are his fault.
It's everybody else, and it's the media. Uh, it's the media,
and it's his critics, to which I put myself in
that camp. Well, media and critic. I'm in both.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: It's like a It's like a Kamala Harris esque ven diagram,
you know. I mean, I'm both media and and critic. Yes,
and so let's talk about the uh, the Ice cooperation?
Do here? It is? Uh cut seven. I'm trying to
find it. Here, there's eight, here's seven. He appeared on
Just a Reset. He appeared for in studio. He was
right here in this very room two days ago, appearing
on Brett Jensen's show from six to seven Weekdays, Breaking
with Brett Jensen. You can go back and listen to
the entire conversation on WBT dot com. On the podcast,
he gave a a meandering explanation of his new ICE
cooperation and how he doesn't listen to his critics, which
might actually be why it took two terms and multiple
pieces of legislation to make him cooperate with ICE in
the first place.
Speaker 4: When I got tired of everybody talking about ice and
here in art of the red drink, and I heard
my fellow sheriff in Texas, Florida, California, Nebraska, everybody sitting
at a convention. I mean sitting at a convention and
they were complaining about what they were not doing. I
decided to come back and have a conversation with ICE.
That conversation now is the best conversation I've had and
continuously to have with ICE. So then when you put
everything to a side and just do what you need
to do, stay focused on what you're doing, you're successful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we told you that. We have told you that
from the beginning. But you ran on a campaign promise
to stop cooperating with ICE that then prompted multiple pieces
of legislation to force you to cooperate with ICE. It
took him eight years, seven years, i should say, and
multiple pieces of legislation to get him to now allow
ICE to take custody of offenders that are in the
jail and to do it in a controlled environment and
to let ICE know that these people who are in
the jail, that are in the country illegally are about
to be released seven years because he scrapped the two
eighty seven g program and refused to cooperate. Now he
wants all of the kudos for cooperating with ICE. And
it's amazing what you can do when you sit down
and have a conversation with them. Uh huh, Yeah, maybe
you should listen to your critics every now and again
instead of just discounting everybody as just a critic and
that they don't like me, and there's some reason why
they don't like me, the first black sheriff. No, it's
got to do with the way you are performing.
Speaker 4: So people can't say, well, he didn't do anything. You're
just listening to what people tell you. And here's what
I asked, is that your experience with me, you just
reading me, you just looking at it on the media,
or you know, as we call the word salad, But what.
Speaker 2: Do you that you speaking word salad? What are you
talking about? Don't gaslight us like we go through. I've
spent years going through the ICE rules on detainers and
custody transfers. I've taken your policies and your statement and
i have examined them. I've taken this stuff from ICE
and compared and contrasted. This isn't word salad over here.
I don't know what he's talking about. I don't even
know if he knows what the term means. Word salad
is what he speaks in this constant bouncing around of
you know, from one topic to the next and incomplete thought,
thoughts and sentences. Oh my gosh, gaslighting.
Speaker 4: But have you personally come and talk to me and
had a conversation. That conversation with Ice at that time
made me understand that we cannot just listen to the Rederick.
We cannot listen to the gossip gossip. We just have
to listen to each other, have a conversation, put everything
to a side, and let's go forward. When we did
that with Ice, it was successful. To the day it
is successful. We got a call. I have heard from
Ice probably five times since that conversation. So that made
me understand critics going to be critics. Yes, critics and
crickets about the same thing. Both used for bait, both
for fishing, and critics are used as bait and critics
are used for fishing. I don't I don't know if
I even understand that critics are you do you mean
criticism is used as bait. See here's the thing. I
actually when people criticize me, and this may come as
a surprise, but people feel very comfortable criticizing me. There
are all sorts of ways that people can criticize me.
I get all sorts of criticisms non stop, pretty much
on all different platforms, emails, phone calls.
Speaker 2: All that stuff. But sometimes critics actually help you improve.
And I would submit that. If I had a leadership
team that kept quitting and telling me that I was
a terrible leader, I think at some point I would
have to do some self examination on that. You know,
when all these different people are saying the same thing
about me. You know, stories are powerful. They help us
make sense of things, to understand experience van stories connect
us to the people of our past while transcending generations.
They help us process the meaning of life, and our
stories are told through images and videos. Preserve your stories
with Creative Video. Started in nineteen ninety seven and Minhill,
North Carolina. It was the first company to provide this
valuable service, converting images, photos and videos into high quality
produced slide shows, videos and albums. The trusted, talented and
dedicated team at Creative Video will go over all of
the details with you to create a perfect project. Satisfaction guaranteed.
Drop them off in person or mail them. They'll be
ready in a week or two. Memorial videos for your
loved ones, Videos for rehearsal, dinners, weddings, graduations, Christmas, family vacations, birthdays,
or just your family stories all told through images. That's
what your photos and videos are. They are your life
told through the eyes of everyone around you and all
who came before you, and they will tell others to
come who you are. Visit Creative video dot Com. A
message here on Twitter from Mama Tudid who says Sheriff
Gary probably decided to wait and see how the election
would go. It was not at all about going to
visit and pray at his childhood home. Now he heard
the dog whistle from the election results. That's a good theory,
sure that, Yeah, Because he said he was going to
wait till some time in the autumn, which I guess, yes,
this is autumn, although it still feels like summer, well
spring maybe, but we're in the fall. So but he
said he was going to go back to his childhood home.
I think it's fro It was in mac b South Carolina,
I want to say, but I don't know if he
went back to his childhood home and reflected and prayed
and then came to the decision before he showed up
on Wednesday to tell Brett that he was running for reelection.
I know he did have time to make a coffee
mug and print up some cards. So maybe there's a
like a mug shop or printing Companie and macbe that
he visited. I don't know. Then there's this clip number eight.
Here we go, yeah, and listen to him. Here he
gets so close to recognizing that he is the problem.
He gets so close. Listen to this.
Speaker 4: People don't understand what it is to involve your family,
what it is involve your friends.
Speaker 1: What does it involve your coworkers.
Speaker 4: When you talk against the detention center, you're not only
talking against Sheriff macfadden. You're talking against my staff who
work Dylan Jilly every day. And so they get tired
of going to the grocery store and hearing, well, how'd
your sheriff?
Speaker 1: How do you like working for him? They don't want
to hear that.
Speaker 2: I know. Yeah, imagine if they had a sheriff that
wasn't like this swirl of controversy all the time and
who treated his staff like crap. Maybe that would, I
don't know, alleviate some of these concerns that your staff
has when they go to the grocery store.
Speaker 1: You know, they don't want to wear their uniform home.
They won't work. I have an amazing staff, We have
a world class staff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they don't want to wear their uniform home. They're
embarrassed by you. That's the problem. You're the problem. He's
so close. He's so close. But notice what he says.
If you criticize the detention center, then you're not just
criticizing the sheriff, you're criticizing all the staff.
Speaker 1: Yet.
Speaker 2: No, Actually, I think people are tracing the responsibility for
managing the entire office, including the detention center. That traces
back to you because you set the tone, you're developing
the culture. You have been in charge now for two terms.
This is all on you, now.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 2: At the beginning, at the very beginning, when he first won,
he made all of these accusations that there was a
good old boy system and there were all these betrayers
around him because they were from the old the good
old boy club and all of this right, all the
previous sheriffs and all the previous personnel like that's those
weren't his hires. They were all out to get him,
and all of this. It's been seven years Okay, this
is all you now. You fired a bunch of those
people from the old system, A bunch of the others
have quit. Your hires have quit you like you hired
them on. And they were like, hmm, yeah, I know.
This guy's are raging. Narcissists were out. Then there was
an interesting part of this discussion where Brett Jensen started
asking him why he thought because McFadden is the first
black sheriff elected to Mecklamur County that was back, you know,
seven years ago. And Brett pointed out that, you know,
thirty percent of the local population is black, but the mayor,
the city manager, the city attorney, the city council, county commission,
chair of the county commission, county manager, county attorney, like
all of these positions of the school board chair, like
a superintendent, like all black. And there are no white
males left in any of the Charlotte Mecklenberg leadership. And
he was asking him, like, why do you think that is?
Because McFadden talks a lot about race. And here is
what let me say here, here is what McFadden said
about every position of leadership being occupied by African Americans
in Charlotte Mecklenberg.
Speaker 4: Why are we still talking about the first black Why
are we talking about the first black female chief of police?
Speaker 2: Why are we still talking about the first black sheriff?
By the way, this is one of his rhetorical crutches.
He just rows out question after question after question after
question after question after question after question, and he never
answers them. It's this this argument style of sort of
accusation by juxtaposition, where you just lay out a bunch
of questions and what do you think it means? Kind
of an approach and it doesn't actually make any assertions.
But then there's this.
Speaker 4: That's difficult because that burden is on us as black
leaders to produce and produce and produce. And then we
are human. And that's what I think we don't really
realize we are human. We have problems to be in
our family, We have sickness in our family, we have
issues in our family. But then what happens is and
me and my good friend Christy Puckett was talking.
Speaker 3: Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa You and
your good friend Christy, we're talking.
Speaker 2: Your good friend Christy Puckett. Do y'all remember about two
years ago, Christy Puckett Williams, the former lobbyist for the
North Carolina ACLU. Yeah, I had a bit of the
run in with his good friend, Christy Puckett, who whipped
up a mob to threaten violence against me. That's his
good friend. I did not realize that until this interview.
I have even more questions now about who you are
associating with your good friend, Christy Puckett. Let me finish
out this clip.
Speaker 4: Here because she had me to talk about community in
this community conversation. You hold us to a higher expectation,
but you do nothing to support that expectation or make
sure that we are what you believe that we should be.
Speaker 1: See.
Speaker 2: So it's our fault. Hell, once again, not his fault.
It's our fault because he said he could do the job,
he's the most qualified to do the job, and then
when it turns out he's not actually doing the job,
it's our fault for not giving him.
Speaker 1: What he needs.
Speaker 2: Here's a great idea. How about making an escape to
a really special and secluded getaway in western North Carolina.
Just a quick drive up the mountain and cabins of Asheville.
Is your connection whether you're celebrating an anniversary, a honeymoon,
maybe you want to plan a memorable proposal, or get
family and friends together for a big old reunion. Cabins
of Asheville has the ideal spot for you where you
can reconnect with your loved ones and the things that
truly matter. Nestled within the breath taking fourteen thousand acres
of the Pisga National Forest, their cabins offer a serene
escape in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Centrally
located between Asheville and the entrance of the Great Smoky
Mountain National Park. It's the perfect balance of seclusion and
proximity to all all the local attractions with hot tubs, fireplaces,
air conditioning, smart TVs, Wi Fi, grills, outdoor tables and
your own private covered porch. Choose from thirteen cabins, six cottages,
two villas, and a great lodge with eleven king sized bedrooms.
Cabins of Ashville has the ideal spot for you for
any occasion, and they have pet friendly accommodations. Call or
text eight two eight three six seven seventy sixty eight
or check out all there is to offer at Cabinsofashville.
Dot com and make memories that'll last a lifetime. So
almost three years ago. It doesn't feel like it's been
almost three years, but it was February of twenty twenty three.
The North Carolina Legislature was working on the Parents' Bill
of Rights and they scheduled a public hearing take public
comment at seven o'clock at night. I think it was
around seven o'clock at night, and so I'm monitoring it
on Twitter, you know, watching the debate between the various
you know, political activists and partisans on Twitter, and the
ACLU of North Carolina's lobbyist at the time, Christy Puckett Williams,
said that she was bemoaning. This is according to The
Carolina Journal, she bemoaned the fact that the Parents' Bill
of Rights was being voted on at seven pm because
it was quote, the cloak of night, the cloak of night,
and so I pointed out I thought helpfully that it's
actually pretty common that all sorts of legislative business, from
city council meetings, town councils, state law, state legislatures, the
federal government, like lots of bodies, hold meetings in the
evening five o'clock, six o'clock, seven o'clock. That's not the
cloak of night. Seven o'clock is not the cloak of night. Okay,
this isn't some shady effort to ram this thing through
in the dead of night, which is the actual phrase.
But in the dead of night, like when no one's
paying attention because it's two in the morning or something.
It's not like we're trying to ram through the state
lottery like Jim Black did when Democrats ran the show, right,
not like that. This was seven o'clock in the evening.
Is dinner time, Okay, that's not the cloak of night.
Nobody eats dinner in the cloak of night or wearing
a cloak of night or whatever. And so I then
also suggested that she just, you know, stop being stupid
about this, like this is you're trying, like you're making
this this is a stupid point. You shouldn't be saying
this thing because it's not the cloak of night. You
just it's stupid. She then snapped, she called me all
sorts of things everything that ended with an ist that
she could think of, very like unhinged of a reaction,
and then she began to go into graphic detail about
all of the different sexual things that that I could
perform on body parts of hers that she doesn't have
because she's a woman. Which was a very weird thing
that she had said. Anyway, one of her supporters then
started threatening me. Yes, they doxed me. They published my
home address with a photo of my house, and they
said it's on site, nothing more to be said. That's
what one of her followers said. And that slang for
if I see you, I'm attacking you. That's what that means.
It's on site and not on site site, because that
would be like then you're on the premises, you know,
like you're on the work site or something. No, No,
this is on site as in vision. As soon as
I see you, I'm going to attack you. She responds,
Oh my damn. I'm sure he don't know what that mean,
but I'm sure he done bleeped around and will most
likely find out. Lol. And then they respond, he will
for sure find out. So this was an example, but
one example of the kind of violent threats that she
whipped up against me at the time. And this is
apparently a good friend of our sheriff. I had no idea.
Now I did know she appeared in some photos with
one of the judges running for election standing for election,
Elizabeth Trosh, I believe, and I think she had to
take those down because it showed her with Christy Puckett Williams,
and so in making her announcement the other day, somebody
brought out those photos of her off of her Facebook
page and then she scrubbed that. By the way, Williams
is part of an organization called Emancipate NC, which supports
dismantling structural racism and mass incarceration, and they count organizations
like the z Smith Reynolds Foundation, the Tides Foundation, Duke
Energy Foundation, the National Bail Fund Foundation as their primary funders.
You may remember the National Bail Fund Foundation. That was
the one that I think it was Kamala Harris told
everybody to donate money to to bail out the mostly
peaceful but sometimes fiery rioters up in Minneapolis, right the
Bail Fund up there. David Larson at The Carolina Journal
pointed out that this is like the things that she
is describing with the sex acts like it's impossible because
of like you know, biology and anatomy and that sort
of thing. And she said a said it doesn't matter
if she has that equipment or not the hypothetical male lobbyist.
So because I at one point said, like, imagine if
this was a guy saying this stuff in public tweets,
a male lobbyist saying this to a female, right, and
the hypothetical male lobbyist could make creepy sexual comments and
it would still be sexual harassment whether he has the
equipment or not. It has nothing to do with her race.
He says, it's just unprofessional in general, and she responds,
professional is a dog whistle for white supremacy culture. Your
anti blackness is showing. So being a professional acting professional
is a dog whistle for white supremacy culture. When another
one of her followers said that I was going to
have to step outside at some point, and so in
doing so, that's when the on site would you know,
take place. As soon as I leave my house, somebody
will attack me somehow, Larson points out, this seems like
a decent window into what life would be like if
all of their lobbying to abolish police and prisons is successful.
Speaker 1: Correct.
Speaker 2: Now, Look, I understand that somebody running for office is
going to meet with a lot of people. It doesn't
necessarily mean that they agree with them on all things,
although it does seem like the guy running the jail
working with and being good friends quote unquote with the
emancipated NC woman here former because the ACLU did fire
her as their lobbyist, which is smart because you're not
going to get any meetings with Republican lawmakers to get
anything done if you're the face of the ACLU in
the legislative halls.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: But when he said that in that interview, I was like, well,
that explains a lot, right, Birds of the feather kind
of a thing. All right, if you're listening to this show,
you know I try to keep up with all sorts
of current events, and I know you do too, and
you've probably heard me say get your news from multiple sources. Why, Well,
because it's how you detect media bias, which is why
I've been so impressed with ground News. It's an app
and it's a website, and it combines news from around
the world in one place, so you can compare coverage
and verify information. You could check it out at check
dot ground dot news slash pete. I put the link
in the podcast description too. I started using ground News
a few months ago and more recently, chose to work
with them as an affiliate because it lets me see
clearly how stories get covered and by whom. The blind
spot feature shows you which stories get ignored by the
left and the right. See for yourself. Check dot Ground
dot news slash Pete. Subscribe through that link and you'll
get fifteen percent off any subscription. I use the Vantage
plan to get unlimited access to every feature. Your subscription
then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports
Ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent.
The email is Pete at the petecalarshow dot com, an
email from John who says, sheriff not my fault. McFadden
is very beatable. One on one he loses. Unfortunately, there
are three candidates running against him, so if two or
more run against him, he will win with about thirty
percent of the vote. The three people that have said
they are going to run need to sit down together
and figure out which one should be the candidate and
the other two should just go to work for the other.
The one who would beat McFadden as chief Deputies or something.
I hope they're goes. Do not get in the way
of this opportunity. Yeah, I don't know, like this is
it's it's gonna real. It's the same thing that happened
up in the election in New York City, right, same
sort of dynamic. You get a crowded enough field and
then McFadden can can slip through. Even though seventy percent
of the people vote against him, he still is the
votainer at thirty percent, if those are the numbers, right,
So that's a problem. And so yeah, the three people
running should probably get together and work out some sort
of a deal. Throw your support behind one candidate, let
them be the nominee, or let them run for the nomination,
and then you would go to work for the for
the winner. I do have hang on a second, I'm
looking at the text line Cloak of night. Yes, this
is from Ian. I can hear your flustration, well played, sir,
flustration with McFadden, because it drives your voice up into
your head. He is a malignant narcissist and therefore irredeemably obtuse.
Having been raised by one, shall be in recovery the
rest of my life. And then there's this from a
seven oh four number. I think sheriff gets full retirement
at ten years as sheriff. It's a different retirement from
other law enforcement. So that's interesting. Yeah, there's yeah, there's
probably some state benefit that kicks in. So okay, so
I have another I got another sound, but I want
to play this one before because we're going to move
on after this this last segment here to some different
stuff in the next hour. He has said stuff like
this before, and when Brett Jensen was talking with Not
My Fault McFadden Wednesday night about the racial demographics of
the city and the county and you know what might
explain why there's just a complete sort of monopoly of
all city positions and county positions of leadership and elected representation.
It's all black. There are no white men on these
bodies or that have been hired, right, they're gone. And
so he's curious as to why because McFadden talks a
lot about race, and he's the first black sheriff and
all that, but he has also talked about how his
command staff who have quit on him they're black too,
and he talked about why his black staffers may resist him. Okay,
so he has a theory as to why, as to
why people under his leadership under his supervision might quit. Spoiler,
it's not his fault.
Speaker 4: When people came against me that look like me, it
was disheartening. I felt betrayed, But now I clearly understand
why because it's deeply rooted into their history because people
who were telling them what to do how to do
it didn't look like me. And then when a person
looked like them is telling them what to do and
how to do it.
Speaker 1: They made questions a little bit.
Speaker 4: Me and my staff talk about it all the time,
think about the same things happening to other sheriffs in
America and some of the other sheriff privileged to me,
but you never hear about it, only because I am
the lightning rod that takes all of the heat.
Speaker 1: And then very few times that I'm defended.
Speaker 2: Maybe no one wants to defend you because the things
you say and do are indefensible. Just going to toss
that out there. But essentially, he's saying that black people
don't know how to take his orders and commands because
it's ingrained in them to only do what a white
boss would tell them to do, and that he says,
they talk about this all the time, Like, dude, it's
not racism. It's you. It's just you, all right. That'll
do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening.
I could not do the show without your support and
the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast,
so if you'd like, please support them too and tell
them you heard it here. You can also become a
patron at my Patreon page or go to dpetekallanershow dot com. Again,
thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything
while I'm gone.
Speaker 3: Mhm.