The Jackson City Council voted 6-1 Tuesday to confirm RaShall Brackney as the new police chief. But shortly before the vote, after the meeting had been going for nearly an hour, council president Brian Grizzell said he had 35 questions.
“I’m not going to ask them all,” the Ward 4 council member said, teasing the crowd in the packed chamber at City Hall.
Grizzell then asked Brackney, Mayor John Horhn’s nominee to lead the Jackson Police Department, to explain how she had “rebuilt trust” as chief of the Charlottesville Police Department in Virginia.
“What specific reforms did you implement there and what measurable results did those reforms produce?” he asked.
Brackney was hired to lead the force in Virginia in the wake of a 2017 white supremacist rally. But three years after she took the helm in Charlottesville, Brackney was abruptly fired in 2022 by the city manager – a position that doesn’t exist in Jackson city government. Council members did not publicly ask Brackney about this.
During her Jackson confirmation hearing, Brackney said that as the only Black woman in the Charlottesville department – and its leader – she faced an entrenched culture of racism, sexism and homophobia. But she said she forced the department to be more transparent by posting every use-of-force incident and civilian complaint on the city’s website and hiring an analyst to determine if officers were conducting legal stops.
Jackson Police Chief nominee RaShall Brackney answers questions from city council members during a meeting before the council voted 6-1 to confirm her appointment. Credit: Aaron Lampley“You make the standard clear: Corruption at any level will not exist at this organization, and I am willing to put my life on the line if that’s the case,” she said, describing her stance in Virginia.
Brackney sued the Charlottesville Police Department over her firing. But the police department said her firing was the result of “chaos and upheaval” in the department and the “ongoing strained relationship between Brackney, City leadership, and community stakeholders,” VPM reported. The lawsuit was dismissed.
Brackney said she fired 10 police officers for inappropriate behavior while she led the department.
“And I walked back through those doors every day during those investigations,” she added, garnering laughs and claps when she quipped “albeit gun in hand, but nonetheless, I walked back through those doors.”
Only Ward 1 council member Ashby Foote voted against Brackney’s confirmation. Ward 3 council member Kenneth Stokes phoned into the meeting.
“She’s much too educated and too charming to be police chief,” Foote told Mississippi Today after the vote.
Brackney, a Pittsburgh native, spent most of her career as a police officer in the northeastern city. Like in Charlottesville, where she was also an outsider to the department, Brackney is moving to the city to take the reins at the Jackson Police Department – a force some on the council characterized as struggling with hallmarks of internal problems: Cliques, favoritism and low morale.
In recent weeks, Grizzell’s brother, Vincent Grizzell, alleged that he was forced to resign from his position as an assistant chief in the department for political reasons, WLBT first reported, but he has not elaborated on what those reasons are.
The disclosure of numerous exhibits by District Attorney Jody Owens as he fights federal bribery charges included FBI documents that contained allegations of corruption at JPD. A former JPD officer, Torrence Mayfield, told FBI agents in a field interview that they should investigate the department. Early last year, he pled guilty to federal charges of making false statements to a firearm dealer.
Ward 6 council member Lashia Brown-Thomas, a former JPD officer, said during her 25 years in the department, she witnessed unfair promotions. She asked: “What is your plan to make the officer feel like if a promotion opportunity came back again that you would treat them right and be fair?”
In Brackney’s answers to the council, she pledged to restore trust in the department and eliminate “those things that are cancerous to your culture.”
One way to do it, she said, was by encouraging professional development and ensuring officers are fairly promoted.
“What happens if you allow officers to dream big?” she said.
The council will set Brackney’s salary at its next meeting but the mayor proposed paying her $150,000. Her confirmation comes after Jackson saw a significant decrease in homicides last year.
But public safety remains a paramount concern for Jacksonians, multiple council members told Mississippi Today. Brackney said collaboration among local law enforcement could improve the perception of Jackson.
“We all have the same goals,” she said, “to make this community safer … not only just from crime and disorder, but the fear of crime and disorder which is just as true and tangible as the actual data and number.”
Horhn announced her nomination earlier this month. He selected Brackney from a list of four finalists after a months-long recruiting process that included community listening sessions. She will be the third woman to lead the department.
“At the end of the day, she is as tough as nails, and I believe her leadership is exactly what Jackson and the citizens need right now,” said Horhn, who has been mayor since July.
The search process came after Joseph Wade retired as police chief in September. Tyree Jones, the Hinds County sheriff, has been serving as Jackson Police Department’s interim chief since Wade left.
Some council members, including Ward 2’s Tina Clay, had said they preferred an internal candidate, citing Jackson and Missisisppi’s unique culture. Of the mayor’s four finalists, only one – Wendall Watts, an assistant chief who oversees criminal investigations – was an internal candidate.
Clay asked Brackney if she had reviewed the department’s budget, prompting Brackney to say she was concerned about the department’s $800,000 to $1 million in overtime pay.
“There is something going on where officers are being tasked in order to meet the needs of this community,” she said. “What is that strain doing to our officers?”
The police chief sets the vision and direction for the department. When Wade led it, he often credited his leadership with rebuilding the department’s trust in Jackson and in metro-area law enforcement. As evidence, he pointed to JPD’s inclusion on federal task forces fighting violent crime in the city.
Brackney said she had a similar task at her previous assignment in Charlottesville.
Months before Brackney was fired in Charlottesville, she disbanded the department’s SWAT team following an internal report that showed officers were engaging in inappropriate behavior. In response, the local police union solicited a survey that showed rank-and-file officers were frustrated with her leadership.
The survey’s findings were cited by the city manager in an op-ed about his firing of Brackney. She then sued the city for $10 million, citing race and gender discrimination. A judge dismissed the lawsuit in 2023.
In recent years, she was also a finalist for Minneapolis police chief, with a local paper there noting that Brackney had a “reform-minded reputation.”
Brackney holds a Ph.D. in instructional management and leadership and taught at George Mason University with a focus on “on police legitimacy, transparency, and reimagining public safety,” according to a city press release.
Foote said he had wanted to see a police chief who would confront gangs and perpetrators of violence crime in Jackson.
“I think gangs are the ones that should be fearful of us,” he said.
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