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After U.S. District Judge Norman K. Moon dismissed former Charlottesville Police Chief RaShall Brackney’s $10 lawsuit against the City last week, Charlottesville Mayor Lloyd Snook, who was named as a defendant, was quick to characterize the decision as a vindication, telling NBC29 that he was "very glad that Judge Moon recognized that when Chief Brackney was fired a year plus ago, that nobody acted out of any improper motive." He also said that the ruling would allow the city to "sort of close the book on the Brackney era."

Brackney alleged that discrimination against her, and resistance to her efforts to implement police reforms, led to her abrupt firing in September 2021 by then-City Manager Chip Boyles.

Ironically, Mayor Snook may have applied the same kind of theoretical conclusions that likely caused Judge Moon to dismiss Brackney’s complaint. As Moon explained, he sought to examine the factual “sufficiency of a complaint,” not to “resolve contests surrounding the facts, the merits of a claim, or the applicability of defenses.”

“It’s never a surprise when judges toss out federal lawsuits,” says Charlottesville defense attorney David Heilberg, alluding to the fact that most cases end in settlements or are dismissed before trial. “It’s very hard to get a case to trial. You can't plead conclusions, or theories about what happened, you need to use facts.”

Ultimately, Judge Moon ruled that Brackney's complaint lacked enough "factual support" to proceed, and when there might have been enough, the application of the law didn’t accommodate it.

For instance, we know that former City Manager Chip Boyles, who made the decision to fire Brackney, was recorded having a conversation with former Mayor Nikuyah Walker before he fired Brackney, during which he said that Michael Wells, president of the Central Virginia Chapter Board of the Police Benevolent Association (PBA), who was also named as a defendant, was “living 24 hours a day seven days a week to try and get [Brackney] her fired. He can say all he wants to, I think he could care less about the officers. For him, it’s a mission.”

Wells triggered a series of events that lead to Brackney’s firing by releasing a PBA survey critical of her leadership and making critical comments about her in the press, which coincided with disciplinary actions Brackney had taken against members of the SWAT Team. PBAs, which support and represent their member police officers, have been historically powerful and influential advocates for police officers. Wells was also in close communication with Boyles, urging him to take action. Indeed, the day Boyles fired Brackney he received a text from Wells saying, “Today, I'm proud of you. You did a great thing for this City."

Wells also told Charlottesville Tomorrow that he thought firing Brackney was the right thing to do because "people are scared" of her because "she’s a Black female and she makes it known on certain terms that if you don’t agree with her, you’re racist.”

However, Judge Moon dismissed the claims against Wells (tortious interference with employment contract and business conspiracy ) because the complaint failed to prove he was acting as an employee or agent of the city, a requirement for such claims.

Moon conceded that "some facts were relevant" to her claim of "professional or reputational injury," but again dismissed the claims based on the law, explaining that the complaint "never alleges business-related damages as Virginia law requires."

"The damages alleged relate only to Plaintiff’s personal and employment interests, and thus they are outside the domain of a statutory conspiracy claim," Moon wrote.

Thus, the unusual public airing of rationalizations and justifications for Brackey's firing by city officials, which even included an Op-Ed by Boyles in the Daily Progress, weren’t considered trial-worthy evidence of reputational harm.

Other claims against individuals were dismissed, in large part, because no matter what might have been going on, Boyles had the "unconditional right" under Virginia law to fire Brackney "without cause" after giving her 90 days notice.

George Rutherglen, a long-time law professor at UVA, was blunter in comments made to the Daily Progress about the case, saying “there were a lot of claims that just weren’t good. The plaintiff’s lawyers just don’t know or tried to ignore the law.”

Still, there were a truly puzzling array of actions taken by agents and employees of the city surrounding Brackney’s firing, and you’ve got to believe there was some explanation for why, as someone on social media put it, the city manager would “panic-fire” the police chief. Or why the police department was about to “erupt into chaos,” as Boyles said dramatically in his Daily Progress Op-Ed.

When Brackney's predecessor, Police Chief Alfred Thomas resigned, it was in the aftermath of a perceived leadership failure that made Charlottesville a hashtag. When Brackney was fired, it was in the aftermath of vague comments about her leadership qualities and two employee satisfaction surveys.

While Brackney hasn’t announced a decision to appeal Moon’s decision, a difficult task considering how detailed his opinion was, she doesn’t appear ready to close the book on this case. What’s more, the very public and clumsy way the city handled Brackney’s firing, which ended up receiving national news coverage, could likely end up in books.

“We did not come into this lawsuit with any delusions regarding Charlottesville’s atmosphere of entitlement or its institutions of cultural supremacy,” said Charles Tucker Jr., Brackney’s attorney, in a statement after Moon’s decision. “Our advice to the Defendants:  Don’t go whistling Dixie yet, because we have only just begun to battle.” Brackney also posted that last line on her Twitter page.

It’s possible the battle started when Brackney was hired, when an experienced, successful, highly educated Black woman dedicated to police reform was thrust into a toxic environment and asked to fix it. Ironically, morale within the police department was likely worse when she started the job.

After the release of the Heaphy Report, which concluded that the police department under Chief Thomas had been woefully ill-prepared for the Unite the Right rally in 2017, the department truly was in chaos. Brackney took over just five months after Thomas resigned, and several months into the job she told the Daily Progress that the department was seeing a “mass exodus” of officers, which prompted her to scold the community and some members of the newly-formed Police Civilian Review Board for the way officers were being treated.

“Officers in our community are routinely verbally assaulted, they’re cursed at. There’s a lot of not feeling as though they’re appreciated,” Brackney told the Daily Progress.

During Brackney’s time as chief, police reform advocates disliked her for fiercely defending her officers, and the rank and file disliked her when she actually disciplined and fired officers. In the end, trying to implement the police reforms she believed in, and boost morale within the police department may have been a no-win situation.

Coindicently, our last permanent city manager, Tarron Richardson, an experienced, successful, highly educated Black man tasked with reforming city government, also filed a lawsuit against the city and various officials after his departure. Which likely ended in a confidential settlement.

Asked by C-Ville Weekly what advice he'd give to someone wishing to be city manager of Charlottesville, Richardson, who gave a candid exit interview, apparently took a long pause before answering.

“I would say really understand what you’re getting into,” he said.

Related

Official explanations/comments about police chief's firing marked by puzzling contradictions

Police Chief Alleges City "defamed her and besmirch her reputation."

City Defends, then Fires its Police Chief

Two former Black leaders now suing/filing complaints against the City