Two months after her controversial firing, former Charlottesville police chief RaShall Brackney has filed formal complaints against the city, and is threatening to bring a lawsuit.
In complaints submitted to CPD’s human resources department, the local Office of Human Rights, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the NAACP, Brackney—the city’s first Black woman police chief—says her firing was direct retaliation against her efforts to dismantle white supremacy within the department. Since Brackney’s firing by then-city manager Chip Boyles (who has since resigned) on September 1, she also claims that city leadership has defamed, harassed, and discriminated against her based on her race and sex.
Brackney is demanding $3 million and a public apology.
The city is allowed to fire Brackney without cause. However, Brackney claims that after she was dismissed, public comments from the city manager and other leaders insinuated that she was fired with cause. That, her legal team argues, constitutes a wrongful termination.
“For the actions I took, for the attempt to dismantle racism, misogyny, nepotism, and police violence, I was deemed, quote, ‘not a good fit’ for this city,” said Brackney at a downtown press conference last week. “My professional reputation has been diminished, harmed, devalued by this city.”
City spokesman Brian Wheeler, who also announced his resignation this month, said the city has “no comment at this time” on Brackney’s complaints.
During the press conference, attorney Charles Tucker of The Cochran Firm walked through the events leading up to Brackney’s firing, beginning with her receipt of an email and video from a “concerned citizen” on June 6.
“What the video uncovered was that several officers using a city phone were engaged in police misconduct,” said Tucker. “[Brackney] put those who were responsible under investigation.”
According to a city statement released in August, the investigation revealed that SWAT team officers filmed their children setting off explosives, circulated pornographic videos and racist jokes on department cell phones, threatened to kill department leaders, and fired semi-automatic weapons at unauthorized events. Brackney fired one officer, and dissolved the SWAT team. Two more officers resigned.
As early as August 2, Tucker said that Boyles began holding secret meetings with city leaders to discuss terminating the chief. In her complaint to the Office of Human Rights, Brackney accuses Boyles, City Attorney Lisa Robertson, City Councilors Heather Hill and Lloyd Snook, Vice-Mayor Sena Magill, Police Civilian Review Board Chair Bellamy Brown, Police Benevolent Association President Mike Wells, Major James Mooney (who has also since retired), and Captain Tito Durrette of colluding to get her fired, in response to her disciplining “white male officers for criminal and departmental misconduct.”
Tucker claimed he and Brackney have records of emails with evidence of the meetings, but did not plan to release them publicly at this time.
Brackney declined an interview with C-VILLE for this story, but did provide written responses to our questions.
Before her termination, Brackney writes that she had an “open, transparent, and professional relationship” with Boyles, and that he gave her “no indication” he believed the department needed a leadership change.
Citing community backlash against Brackney’s termination—along with Mayor Nikuyah Walker’s pushback—Boyles resigned as city manager in October. He has taken a new job as executive director of the George Washington Regional Commission in Fredericksburg.
“The city’s response to my actions…[sends] a message that proclaims throughout CPD and City Hall that the good ol’ boys system of patronage and insularity are alive and well in Charlottesville,” said Brackney during the press conference.
In addition to disbanding the SWAT team, removing school resource officers from city schools, and ending CPD’s relationship with the Jefferson Area Drug Enforcement Task Force, Brackney said she held officers accountable for severe misconduct, including police brutality, domestic violence, sexual assault, and child abuse. She also claimed the SWAT team has been secretly reassembling since her termination, and will be fully funded in the FY23 CPD budget.
The former chief also accused the city of rewarding people who support systemic racism. Brackney said Durrette, a former SWAT team commander, was on a “performance improvement plan” before he was promoted to assistant police chief, following Mooney’s retirement last month. Durrette is leading the department until a new permanent chief is hired.
During her three-year tenure as chief, Brackney writes that some officers “openly embraced and supported reform.” But some of her initiatives were met with concerted pushback. In particular, she required officers to participate in implicit and explicit bias training, which was unpopular. She also required them to file Response to Resistance reports for every use-of-force incident in the field. Officers also disagreed with Brackney’s response to last year’s protests against police violence, and believed CPD “should confront and arrest individuals for blocking streets, shutting down traffic, or other violations of a special events permit.”
“My reward for doing what’s right? Slander. My reward? Defamation. My reward? Retaliation, harassment, humiliation. My reward for challenging the system of supremacy? Termination,” said Brackney at the press conference.
During a City Council meeting following Brackney’s termination, Boyles, who said he’d held discussions with police officers, city leaders, Wells, and other parties, claimed that key departmental leaders planned to quit their jobs due to their lack of trust in the chief. He pointed to the results of two anonymous surveys of officers—one conducted by the department last year, the other conducted by the Police Benevolent Association in August—which led him to believe the department would only descend into “further chaos” under Brackney’s leadership.
Tucker emphasized that the PBA survey was commissioned in July, shortly after Brackney had disbanded the SWAT team and disciplined multiple officers for misconduct. It remains unclear who the survey was sent to. “The timing of it is suspect, where it came from is suspect, the way it was used is very suspect,” he said.
Brackney pointed out that Boyles himself admitted he had no faith in the survey, and called it “unscientific.”
In explaining his rationale for the firing, Boyles claimed that he had consulted various department employees and area public safety experts. Brackney’s team submitted Freedom of Information Act requests for records of those meetings, and was told that no records matched the request. “Not one shred of documented evidence exists that these ‘interviews’ were conducted,” she writes.
“You slandered me. You libeled me. You literally diminished me. And then now you’ve been torturing me for the past two months,” said Brackney of Boyles.
According to Tucker, Brackney still works at the department, and will be on the payroll until the end of the month. However, she has lost access to all CPD spaces and systems, and must make an appointment to enter the department and be escorted around by a subordinate officer.
“They have curtailed the information that she’s receiving on a day-to-day basis, and have basically stripped her of her responsibilities for the most part, and have her shadow a captain,” he explained during the press conference.
The city has until November 26 to respond to Brackney. If it does not reach a settlement agreement with her, the former chief will take her case to federal court. In her complaint to the NAACP, she also urged the organization to file a class-action suit against the city for its “pattern” of discrimination.
After all this, Brackney remains open to staying at CPD, if the city’s new management offers her the job back.
“My attorney and I will not take anything off the table,” said Brackney. “The city’s got the next move.”