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Portsmouth — Portsmouth Police Chief Angela Greene was removed from her position Friday morning, weeks after she announced felony charges against state Sen. Louise Lucas and more than a dozen others stemming from a protest and vandalism at the city’s Confederate monument in June.
It was not immediately clear whether her removal is permanent.
Scott Burke, an assistant chief, will take on her job “during a period of leave” for Greene, City Manager Lydia Pettis Patton wrote in an email obtained by The Virginian-Pilot.
The email, sent Friday morning, says the move is “effective immediately and until further notice.”
Vice Mayor Lisa Lucas-Burke said the city manager told council members Friday that Greene was on administrative leave pending an investigation into her personnel file. Lucas-Burke did not know how long that term of leave will be.
Pettis Patton and a city spokeswoman did not respond to messages seeking comment Friday.
Portsmouth police spokeswoman Victoria Varnedoe did not respond to an email and phone call seeking comment Friday from the department, Greene and Burke.
Greene has led the department for about 17 months.
In an email two days after the charges in the monument case were announced, Pettis Patton told council members that city police should not have been investigating the case because of a conflict of interest, although she did not say what that conflict was. The city manager said she was surprised to hear police were filing charges.
In a written statement in response, Greene said she tried to have an outside agency investigate the protests because of a potential conflict involving “elected city officials” who were there. After “all efforts were exhausted” to have an outside group investigate, Greene said it was up to her department to do it.
She said no conflicts of interest for her department “were revealed” during the Portsmouth police investigation.
Greene officially got the job in June 2019, but had been interim chief since former Chief Tonya Chapman abruptly resigned that March.
At the time, Chapman said she was forced out and raised allegations of systemic racism within the department. At a public forum following Chapman’s resignation, Greene acknowledged implicit bias but said she had not witnessed “extreme racism” in the department.
Greene joined the Portsmouth department as an assistant chief in 2016 after working with Richmond police for 15 years.
On Aug. 17, Greene said Portsmouth police had filed charges against 14 people — including Lucas, NAACP leaders, a School Board member and several public defenders — stemming from the June 10 protest. All were charged with felony injury to a monument, and eight also face a conspiracy charge. Five more people have been charged since.
In the afternoon June 10, people gathered and began spray painting the monument ahead of a planned rally that night. Meanwhile, the City Council postponed a vote on whether or not to move the monument, which city leaders have debated for years. The monument sits on the site of what used to be a slave whipping post. (The City Council has since voted to move it, and workers have begun taking it apart.)
Hours later that night, protesters beheaded statues of four soldiers on the monument and pulled one down with a tow rope. Chris Green, 46, was seriously injured when the statue fell on him.
In court documents, police say Lucas told officers in the afternoon that they couldn’t arrest protesters: “I’m not telling them to do anything,” Lucas said of the demonstrators, “I’m telling you, you can’t arrest them.”
Most of those charged — including NAACP leaders, three public defenders and the school board member — are accused of either holding and shaking spray paint cans or spray painting the monument that afternoon, according to a probable cause summary written by police.
Lucas has denied any wrongdoing.
Gov. Ralph Northam, other Democratic elected officials and activists condemned the charges and questioned the timing: The charges were announced one day before Lucas and other state legislators were due in Richmond for the start of a special session, during which they plan to address criminal justice and policing reforms. A number of elected officials and activists said the charges were an attempt to silence Lucas, who is one of the most powerful Black lawmakers in the state and has pushed for police reforms.
The police sergeant who filed charges in the case had sent an email to the city manager and council members about 24 hours after the protest, defending the police chief and condemning Lucas and others. Sgt. Kevin McGee, who did not respond to an email from The Pilot, told HuffPost that he wasn’t involved in the investigation at the time he sent the email and that he and the Portsmouth department could investigate “without bias and only present the facts as they are found.”
The city manager and Commonwealth’s Attorney Stephanie Morales said they did not know Portsmouth police were filing charges.
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Greene started her career working for law firms, but switched to policing in 2001, when she joined the Richmond department.
She rose to the rank of captain in her time there and held various positions, including LGBTQ liaison and, at different times, head of personnel and recruitment, training, high-risk operations and the major crimes unit.
She was drawn to a career in law enforcement from a young age, she told The Virginian-Pilot in an interview last year. She saw a lot of police activity where she was raised in New Jersey: “Growing up, officers to me were always very helpful, and I like that aspect of helping people and being there when people are in need or in trouble.”
Following Chapman’s departure in Portsmouth last year, Greene said the department went through mandatory implicit bias, cultural diversity awareness and inclusion training, she told The Pilot at the time.
Asked about her approach to policing, Greene said she thought of police officers as a family.
“We need to have that close bond with each other, through training and education. And then after that, only then do I feel like we can better serve the community,” Greene said. " We have to know how to deal with each other first, internally, because that can be seen in the community.”
Margaret Matray, 757-222-5216, margaret.matray@pilotonline.com