Reformers out in Charlottesville, Va.

Mayor and police chief leaving the posts they assumed after deadly 2017 Unite the Right rally

Nikuyah Walker and RaShall Brackney rose to two of the top posts in Charlottesville, Va. within months of each other, promising to shake up the city as its first Black woman mayor and police chief, respectively.

Walker pushed a racial equity platform after white supremacists had descended on the college town for the deadly Unite the Right in 2017. Brackney, a champion of community policing, was brought on the following spring to reform the city’s department.

But just over three years later, both are leaving their posts.

Brackney, who had recently dismissed several officers accused of misconduct and been criticized by the local police union, was fired by the city manager this month with no public explanation. Walker said it was that incident that pushed her to a breaking point, prompting her to withdraw from her reelection campaign.

“If this is how a local government is going to operate, the work that I was elected to do isn’t even possible,” said Walker, the first independent elected in Charlottesville since the 1940s. “They fired her for doing what exactly she was hired to do, and they can’t give an answer as to why.”

The situation, she said, points to a challenge that echoes far beyond central Virginia: Cities like hers can elect candidates with bold plans and appoint law enforcement leaders committed to sweeping change. But without the support of their staffers and fellow lawmakers, Walker noted, those officials are set up to fail.

A political newcomer, Walker ran on the slogan “Unmasking the Illusion,” promising to expose and fight systemic racism in Charlottesville. She openly criticized the city’s handling of the Unite the Right rally and rejected the idea, particularly from some White residents, that the city itself was not racist.

The five-member City Council, which chooses the city’s mayor, chose Walker twice — once shortly after she began serving on the council in January 2018, and another time two years later.

Once in office, Walker said she faced constant opposition in implementing some of her racial equity goals. She spent three years unsuccessfully pushing to create a city office that would evaluate city-funded programs run by nonprofits. A prison reentry initiative drew frequent pushback from city employees, she said, because she designed it to be run by formerly incarcerated staffers.

Walker also attracted plenty of scrutiny for other matters. Local prosecutors investigated her for using her city credit card to buy gift cards for residents who spoke at City Council meetings, though no charges were issued. Earlier this year, she drew headlines — and some calls to resign — for tweeting out a graphic poem that compared the “beautiful-ugly” college town to a rapist.

Some of her fellow lawmakers on the City Council — which aside from her is composed of all White Democrats — called Walker a divisive force. They placed blame on her for an unusual amount of turnover, including the departure of two city managers.

But Walker said that her constant focus on racial equity was necessary to upend racism in Charlottesville’s policies, particularly for its Black residents.

“Some of our staff members will go home every day and bang their heads against the front door from being in meetings with me, but that doesn’t change the system,” Walker said. “I have spent time every day trying to convince people there is racism in our city government. People’s lives are not going to change as long as that is the case.”

Brackney, who previously led campus police at George Washington University, was appointed in 2018 and vowed to change the warrior mentality” present in the Charlottesville police agency and improve ties with Black residents. As of this month, she was the only Black woman and one of just 13 Black officers on the more than 100-person force.

She put information on detentions, use of force and other police practices online for residents to see, and hired a Fourth Amendment analyst to regularly review body-camera footage. Most notably, she fired at least seven officers who had been accused of misconduct. Brackney also disbanded the city’s SWAT team.

Her discipline measures upset the police union, which — like many of its peer groups in much bigger metro areas — has resisted some of the policing overhaul measures sweeping the country, particularly after racial-justice protests in 2020.

In an Aug. 10 letter to Walker, the local chapter of the Virginia Police Benevolent Association declared that officers had lost faith in Brackney.

On Sept. 1, City Manager Chip Boyles announced he would be firing Brackney. The Charlottesville City Council discussed the firing during a closed session on Tuesday. When Walker moved to bring the topic up for public discussion, however, none of her colleagues seconded that motion.

The next day, Walker announced on Facebook she would not be running for reelection this November.