Connecting Peacemaking and Community Building with Policing

Alumna Dr. RaShall Brackney is a leader transforming law enforcement

By Elizabeth Speed

Dr. RaShall Brackney is often an “only.” She is a Black woman working in the law enforcement field, which is exceedingly rare, leading reforms as chief of police in Charlottesville, Virginia. She finished both a bachelor’s and master’s degree at Carnegie Mellon University, the only member of her classes with two decades of experience working as a police officer. RaShall went on to earn a Ph.D., and she’s one of only a few in her field to hold a doctorate. Now she’s working in a city that was the location of the 2017 white supremacist “Unite the Right” rally, and she’s leading a push for radical transparency.

“I know what it feels like to be downtrodden. I am a minority, and I come from very poor communities,” RaShall says, recalling her childhood in Pittsburgh’s Homewood neighborhood. “There are so many ways in which I feel like I’m an 'other’ that there’s no way I would ever contribute to that feeling through the policing or the criminal legal system. We are not going to add to that pain and trauma, not if I can help it.”