Following the media release of an inflammatory Charlottesville Police Department (CPD) officer survey, Department administration has reneged on a threat to publish retaliatory video evidence.
The survey, conducted by the Virginia Police Benevolent Association and published by The Schilling Show, revealed information damning of the current CPD internal climate and Department practices.
In response to the survey, CPD administration—in a statement to CBS19 News—foreshadowed release of compromising videos indicting certain CPD officers:
“The Charlottesville Police Department has declined to comment about this on Thursday but does say it plans to release videos regarding officers and leadership roles next week.”
The content of these videos later was elaborated in an accusatory, rash, and indiscreet CPD press release.
The Schilling Show requested a copy of the referenced videos via the Virginia Freedom of Information Act.
In an August 26 email response, Charlottesville Police Department administration (on behalf of Chief RaShall Brackney) refused to release the requested videos—which had been slated for publication this week—citing legal exemptions:
Pursuant to VA Code 2.2-3706 (B)9 your request is being denied.
Please see the following:
VA Code 2.2-3706
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Discretionary releases. The following records are excluded from the mandatory disclosure provisions of this chapter, but may be disclosed by the custodian, in his discretion, except where such disclosure is prohibited by law:
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Records of (i) background investigations of applicants for law-enforcement agency employment, (ii) administrative investigations relating to allegations of wrongdoing by employees of a law-enforcement agency, and (iii) other administrative investigations conducted by law-enforcement agencies that are made confidential by law;
The Charlottesville Police Department has refused to provide what they clearly had threatened to release in a fit of rage. The sought retribution against its own officers apparently is subservient to the fear of lawsuits that almost certainly would have followed such an indiscriminate act of reprisal.
How does that phrase go? “What goes around comes around.”
Police Chief Brackney, touted as a change agent by Mayor Walker, played politics, and today (Sept. 2nd) reaped the consequences with her dismissal. I have to qualify that, with an acknowledgment that she will be richly and disproportionately rewarded with severance and perks for a job undone… that is, unless the intended “change” was the degradation of Public Safety and Security under her watch. No doubt the Chief has properly positioned herself to vie for a potential position in someone’s Administration somewhere… one can speculate… there is always Chicago, or Philadelphia, or Baltimore, to ply her dysfunctional management skills someplace “it don’t truly matter”… or, a lackey to an old white male regime under Terry “McAwful” in Richmond, or Lyin’ Joe in the bowels of DC. Our “Woke” Elitist Cult has created a burgeoning Cottage Industry of Equity Hires, declared all Conservatives “White Supremacists”, and claimed dominion of the Democrat Party over anything and anyone… ironically, to the detriment of whaa??? POC!!! Frankly, I’m indifferent as to “what’s next”? Why? Charlottesville shows little sign of pursuing a “new” course, rather, preferring always to cover the old (ones).
Brackney, like Walker, is a steadfast hater and racist. Failure follows that type doggedly. It cuts both ways… the pruning. If, as alleged, our SWAT team was a band of rogue deviants, and our CPD a bastion of systemic racism, then let an able, apolitical, new leader emerge. On merit and achievement. Unlike the current “matched set”. Now THAT would be a Change.
I have a question for Charlottesville and UVA: According to city leaders and leftists, the CPD is in dire need of reform, has a poison culture that is anti-citizen, is a backwards organization, is rife with non-progressive and toxic cops, and Brackney was brought in to initiate said turnaround. IF this is true (IF in caps for a reason), the person who created this culture over a decade-long period retired, was fawned over by the media, and was hired in a cushy, high paying executive job at UVA and is still executing LE strategy on the streets of the city. The top cop–now at UVA– once instituted a “stop and swab” campaign to stop black men on the streets and obtain their DNA in a futile attempt to track down a rapist. Yet, when he was courted and hired by UVA, there was not one protest, not one walkout, not one shred of resistance on the part of UVA’s leftists. How do they reconcile that? It seems like the height of hypocrisy.