CHARLOTTE, N.C. – From domestic violence, to school safety, to the opioid epidemic, these are the issues Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden says he'd rather focus on.

• Charlotte has had 73 homicides in 2019 so far
• Sheriff Garry McFadden is calling this a "public health crisis"
• He says he wants to help lower that number

"We almost forgot about all of these things that causes problems in our community, because we're all focused on immigration," he said. "When people talk about making the city unsafe, it's unsafe now because of the homicide rate."

Sheriff McFadden calls Charlotte's 73 homicides a “public health crisis” on social media. Doing so, he says opens up access to valuable resources and data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"Homicide, you could almost classify it as a disease," he told Spectrum News. "How much does it cost to bury someone? How much it costs to have someone in the hospital? It is a crisis."

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The sheriff is no stranger to spiking murder rates. He was a homicide detective with Charlotte-Mecklenburg police in 1993 when the city had a record 129 homicides.

He says this year's murder spike is much different and sounds more daunting. He also says he wants his department to do more about all the violence.

"I want to get back to helping CMPD with the homicide rate. I can't do that right now because we're fighting this immigration thing," he said.

Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed HB370 on Wednesday. The bill would require sheriffs to detain and turn over undocumented immigrants to ICE.

Sheriff McFadden tells us politicians are creating an unhealthy, hateful, adversarial environment, and turning immigration into a political talking point.

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"The sheriffs who happened to just take over in North Carolina just so happen to be African American. Now, I know these are hard conversations to have and people don't want to have them. But, these are the kinds of conversations we need to have to get a better understanding," he said.

He says if he had the time, he would do things differently.

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"Reach the kids in school. Reach them like we did before," he said. "How can we decrease the beef? How can we talk conflict resolution?"

It's where he says his attention is needed most. Not fighting legislation that would strip his power.