It’s unclear whether these questions factored into Brackney’s decision to disband the specialty. Previously, her only stated reason for dissolving SWAT had to do with “disturbing” conduct of individual officers on the team.
“It seems odd that they would decide to disband the team due solely to disciplinary reasons,” Suprenant, of University of New Orleans, said. “I can see why disciplinary problems would lead a city to removing everyone from the current team and replacing them, but it’s weird that it would lead to eliminating the unit entirely.”
Charlottesville Tomorrow asked Brackney if she had other reasons for terminating the unit.
“The investigation [into misconduct of SWAT members] was the primary reason for disbanding the SWAT team,” she said in a statement provided by her lawyer.
“However,” Brackney added, “there were discussions as to revamping the deployment matrix, and SWAT’s usage based on the Fifeville incident ([Virginia State Police] and [Jefferson Area Drug Enforcement] response in 2019), and the necessities for deployment.”
That 2019 event was a raid of a local home led by state police with members of its Jefferson Area Drug Enforcement unit. Officers deployed flash grenades, used automatic weapons and handcuffed a young woman. They were searching for an alleged weapons cache that was not there.
Charlottesville’s SWAT team did not participate in that raid.
The SWAT team’s internal issues began to surface in June of this year, when Brackney became aware of messages between a SWAT team member and field training officer in which they talked about killing command staff and other officers and “letting God sort it out.”
At the time, command staff included Brackney, former Assistant Chief James Mooney, Captain Joseph Hatter and then-Captain Durrette (who is now assistant chief).
A further investigation showed that other SWAT members had participated in unauthorized trainings with department-issued semi-automatic weapons. Children of SWAT team members participated in one such training.
The team had also been circulating videos of naked women and videos in which they simulated sex acts.
Emails and memos obtained by Charlottesville Tomorrow detail how one officer on the SWAT team was recommended for termination.
His violations included “rude or inappropriate comments, gestures, discourtesies, or conduct relating to a person’s race, religion, ethnicity, national origin, disability, or gender” and “neglect of duty” for filming a video while with a trainee at an incident they were responding to, according to a memo recommending the officer’s termination. The officer subsequently resigned.
The memo also outlines text conversations between that officer and another SWAT team member. The texts discussed how the SWAT member’s sons were “[thrown] into the octagon” and instructed to fight each other for his amusement.
The officer with the sons, who lived in the county, later became the subject of an Albemarle County Police Department investigation into alleged child abuse.
According to documents obtained from ACPD, following an examination of the text exchanges between the officers’ phones and a visit with a Child Protective Services supervisor, the case was recommended to be closed.
Brackney also gave disciplinary action notice to two additional officers — one resigned while the other was fired.
She then disbanded the unit.
(Brackney has alleged that this was the reason she was fired, in retaliation for “disciplining and terminating white, male officers for unlawful police practices.” City officials have yet to comment on Brackney’s allegations.)
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November 23, 2021 at 11:48AM
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Charlottesville's SWAT team was disbanded for 'disturbing behavior,' but there's still funding for it if a new chief wants to reinstate it - Charlottesville Tomorrow
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