RaShall M. Brackney, a 30-year veteran of the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police, has been named chief of the George Washington University Police Department, or the GWPD.
Brackney will begin Jun 8 with the department, which is responsible for providing police and security services for the Foggy Bottom, Mount Vernon and Virginia Science and Technology campuses.
With the Pittsburgh Police Department, Ms. Brackney oversees the Major Crimes Division within the Investigations Branch and is a liaison to several of the colleges and university police departments within her operations area.
Throughout her 15-year tenure as a commander, she has been responsible for overseeing the operations of the Pittsburgh Municipal Court building, which included Uniform Crime Reports to the FBI, prisoner identification and processing, criminal records and criminal history expungements.
Since 2001, she also has managed the Special Deployment Division, including the SWAT team, mounted patrol, accident investigation, hostage negotiations, river rescue, special events, traffic division, tow pound and the bomb squad.
Earlier in her career, Ms. Brackney was responsible for the development of lesson plans, training, scheduling and overall performance of the in-service training for veteran police officers and newly hired recruits, including police officers working for the colleges and universities within Pittsburgh’s city limits. Ms. Brackney has also instituted a crime analysis program and supervised the City of Pittsburgh’s police candidate recruitment efforts.
GWPD maintains a close working relationship with the District of Columbia’s Metropolitan Police Department and GW’s officers also attend a Campus Public Safety Institute sponsored by the Consortium of Universities of the Washington Metropolitan Area.
Ms. Brackney received her undergraduate and graduate degrees from Carnegie Mellon University and is pursuing her doctorate in instructional management and leadership at Robert Morris University.
Ms. Brackney replaces former Chief Kevin Hay who retired last fall after a more than 30-year law enforcement career.