A community-oriented homicide detective with razor-sharp memory and a 90 percent success rate from the over 700 cases he’s solved seems like the perfect fictional character for your favorite new crime-drama.
As luck would have it, that character is set to debut on screens everywhere with one minor adjustment in tow—he is very much real.
This evening [Tuesday, June 14] the Investigation Discovery channel will premiere the first episode of its new true-crime series I Am Homicide: a chronicle of the extraordinary and renowned career of Charlotte, North Carolina homicide detective Garry McFadden.
A series of 6 episodes, each one-hour long episode will feature the exploration of some of McFadden’s most notorious cases as he explains his unconventional methods for solving crime. One of those methods, he tells us, is the way in which he treats everyone involved.
“I’m not going to disrespect you or your family because you’re a suspect in the case. I treat each family the same,” McFadden begins. “I am honest with both sides. People love that. It gives them a sense of ‘I can really talk to this guy’. “
A champion for what he calls “Sugar Free Talk,” Detective McFadden has built a career of sincerity and honesty based off of his values and adherence to the law, despite outside influence.
“I’m going to tell you something that you don’t want to hear and it’s the truth. Guess what? You’re going to have to take it.”
Only having lost one case in 22 years, McFadden takes his position as a community leader more seriously than most—a quality to which he attributes his success.
He’s witnessed a volatile cycle in communities of color and citing an arrest he made one Easter Sunday, he touched on his efforts on bettering his community.
“I took this father to jail, and his son was wearing the same outfit that my son would wear and I went to church with him,” McFadden remembers. “I think where we miss that calling as African-Americans in law enforcement is that we can take a father to jail. But, we don’t have to leave a bad taste in the mouth of that child. That father, now, we are great. We are on speaking terms, we talk to each other. I mentor his son. It’s about building relationships. We can make a difference. But, we have to honest with what the past has given us and where our future is leading us.”
Touching on more recent events, McFadden easily related back to his 35-year long career and his experiences in mass homicides as he gave an honest look into the tragedy at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub.
“You have to think about the things that no one really thinks about—walking into that club and having to identify, touch, remove, and diagram 50 people. That is the job of a homicide detective. No matter how many detectives there are. Each family has to be personally spoken to. There is somebody who was celebrating an accomplishment. There is somebody in that club who was going through a tragic time and someone took them out. There is somebody in that club celebrating their very first time together. There was happiness, and all of that came to an abrupt stop.”
Prior to Orlando’s tragic events, McFadden was set to lead a Plan, Prepare, Provide seminar in Charlotte, North Carolina where he is to discuss what to do and how to handle an active shooter situation in hopes of preparing and educating the public on events like these—events that McFadden says are often overlooked.
“There have been 169 of these shootings this year. There was a shooting Saturday night in Roswell, New Mexico where a young man took the life of his entire family and his wife. Things like this happen in America everyday but we just don’t know about them”
The June 23rd event was to host a total 250-person audience and has now been prompted to change the venue to host a total of 1,000 in the wake of this weekend’s tragedies.
I Am Homicide premieres this evening at 10 p.m. ET as the first episode titled “From the Gridiron to the Grave” dives into Garry McFadden’s quest for justice in the shooting death of Charlotte high school football star Travis Davis.
Hoping that the show displays the better side of law enforcement, McFadden is confident that his show can add on to the promising legacy of trustworthiness and authenticity that he’s carried with him throughout his career.
“That is the ultimate goal—if I can help change the way we look at law enforcement in communities of color and bridging that gap.”
