Friends and supporters uniformly describe Pittsburgh police Cmdr. RaShall Brackney as smart, capable and hard-working. She stands her ground with peers and supervisors. She gets results, does her research and backs those under her command whose work ethic she respects. Even detractors acknowledge that the ambitious 22-year veteran is mentally tough and has admirable qualities.

"I just saw her as a very competent, very professional police officer, a strong leader, someone who was approachable, someone who attended our meetings, responded to our problems, took our phone calls," said District Judge Eugene Ricciardi, a former city councilman on the South Side.

But there is another side to the police commander, who is under investigation by both the Allegheny County district attorney's office and the city's Office of Municipal Investigations for her actions at the scene of an accident involving a friend.

Critics call Cmdr. Brackney arrogant, argumentative and intimidating, a firebrand who sometimes operates with a scorched-earth policy. Some use stronger language, such as "bull-headed," "ornery" and "obnoxious." They say she rules with an iron fist and if you are on her bad side, your work life could be hellish.

"While serving as legal chair and vice president of the FOP [Fraternal Order of Police], I found Brackney to be intelligent, articulate, autocratic and abrasive, in equal measures," said Officer Charles Bosetti.

Almost no one with negative comments would speak for attribution, and even some officers who spoke favorably of Cmdr. Brackney opined that she can be opinionated and difficult to get along with. One retired supervisor jokingly refers to Cmdr. Brackney as "God RaShall."

Cmdr. Brackney declined comment for this story, citing rules prohibiting her from speaking during an internal investigation.

What baffles most people about the events of March 11 is why someone of Cmdr. Brackney's by-the-book approach would potentially harm her career by interfering with police officers responding to an accident.

At 1:18 a.m. that morning, Martha Agedew Vasser, a friend of Cmdr. Brackney and owner of a shop in East Liberty, struck three parked vehicles in the 3600 block of Liberty Avenue in Lawrenceville. A trio of officers -- Christina Davison, Stephen Lober and Robert Synowiec -- from Zone 2 in the Hill District responded. So did Cmdr. Brackney, who drove Mrs. Vasser away from the scene in her own vehicle.

"Due to the presence of Cmdr. Brackney at the scene, her involvement, and her knowing Vasser, I felt intimidated by her presence and was unable to further investigate Vasser," according to a written account by Officer Davison.

At the heart of the controversy is whether Cmdr. Brackney purposely interfered with the officers' investigation in an effort to protect her friend or whether she legitimately believed the officers were done with Mrs. Vasser and had cleared her to leave the scene.

A short time earlier, both Mrs. Vasser and Cmdr. Brackney had been at a club, CJ's, in the 2900 block of Penn Avenue. Cmdr. Brackney was out with police Officer Torriona Mitchell, who was celebrating her 40th birthday. Mrs. Vasser arrived there independently. Officer Mitchell is the police union's vice president and works as a plainclothes detective under Cmdr. Brackney's command at Zone 5 in East Liberty.

After Mrs. Vasser crashed -- in the process of swerving to avoid another vehicle, according to her attorney -- she called Cmdr. Brackney on her cell phone. Cmdr. Brackney showed up and quietly intervened, according to an account provided by Fraternal Order of Police President James J. Malloy.

When Officer Davison arrived, she wrote, she heard Mrs. Vasser on a cell phone saying, "I don't know what to do."

A short time later, the officer wrote, as Mrs. Vasser sat in her own vehicle, Cmdr. Brackney arrived and said she knew the driver.

"At this time, Cmdr. Brackney moved in between Vasser and I to the degree that I felt it necessary to back up. At this time, Cmdr. Brackney said that she didn't want Vasser sitting around the airbag dust and wanted Vasser to have a seat in her car."

Officer Davison turned away to speak with Officer Synowiec, and when she turned back she saw Mrs. Vasser getting into Cmdr. Brackney's sport utility vehicle.

"At this point," she wrote, "I felt that Cmdr. Brackney was taking over my accident and investigation."

Officer Davison wrote that she asked Mrs. Vasser if she wanted to go to the hospital, and Cmdr. Brackney said she would take her to the Western Pennsylvania Hospital in Bloomfield.

"I finished writing down information. As I was doing this, Cmdr. Brackney was on a cell phone speaking with a person I believe was a man," Officer Davison wrote. "She said Martha was involved in an accident and she would be bringing her home. After a brief period, she hung up and I asked Cmdr. Brackney if she was taking her to a hospital or home. She said she was taking her to the hospital."

Mrs. Vasser never showed up there, however, Mr. Malloy said.

None of the officers conducted field sobriety tests on Mrs. Vasser. Officer Davison wrote that she planned to follow up with Mrs. Vasser at the hospital to determine whether a blood test was needed to check for intoxication. But she was unable to do so because Mrs. Vasser never showed up at the hospital.

Officer Davison was disturbed enough by the commander's conduct that she called her supervisor, Sgt. James Vogel. Sgt. Vogel, who was just promoted in June and was working that shift as the acting lieutenant for Zone 2, contacted Cmdr. Scott Schubert, who was the on-call supervisor for the city.

Cmdr. Schubert contacted Cmdr. Brackney a short time later.

The officers involved were told to write special reports that were forwarded up the chain of command until they reached Chief Nate Harper, who requested an investigation by District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr.

Contrary to earlier comments by Mr. Malloy, who said Mrs. Vasser left without providing identification, Officer Davison wrote that she turned over her driver's license.

It is not clear whether Cmdr. Brackney has hired an attorney.

Some, such as Mr. Malloy, believe the officers were so intimidated by the presence of a commanding officer -- even one who was off-duty, in street clothes and outside the jurisdiction of her East Liberty precinct -- that they did not feel comfortable standing up to her.

Not everyone accepts that explanation. Zone 1 Cmdr. Catherine McNeilly recalled a time years earlier when she and her husband, then-Chief Robert W. McNeilly Jr., stopped by a scene near Station Square where Port Authority officers were making an arrest. The McNeillys were there merely to lend a hand, but she said a rumor quickly circulated that her husband had somehow intimidated the officers.

"The moral of this story was how the officers felt just because we stopped by," Cmdr. McNeilly said.

"We can't affect how people feel when they see us. RaShall, whatever she did or said or how she acted, however they perceived may have been completely different," Cmdr. McNeilly said. "If these officers wanted to make something different out of what occurred, there was no controlling them."

Cmdr. McNeilly described Cmdr. Brackney as "very moral," highly aware of policies, procedures and regulations, thorough and competent. She said Cmdr. Brackney is so by the book that she admonishes Cmdr. McNeilly, who has a hard time writing because of multiple sclerosis, that her use of a signature stamp is against the rules.

Cmdr. Brackney, 44, came on the job in 1984. In 1995, she made sergeant and was promoted to lieutenant the next year. In 2000, then-Chief McNeilly elevated her to the elite rank of commander, which is just below assistant chief. She has been in charge of the Special Deployment Division, Zone 3 on the South Side and Zone 5, her current posting.

"She's very bright. she's very organized, she's very determined. When I was looking for candidates for promotion to commander, her name came up," said Chief McNeilly, who is now in charge of the Elizabeth Township Police Department.

"She knows the issues, she knows how to give direction, she knows how to hold people accountable. I think that's what causes problems. Sometimes a strong leader in the command staff meets resistance by some officers, some people in the FOP," he said.

Chief McNeilly described Cmdr. Brackney as someone with initiative who was on top of problems in her zone. During her first tenure at Zone 5, she presided over a sharp drop in crime that was steeper than that seen in other zones.

Asked about whether Cmdr. Brackney had any weaknesses, Chief McNeilly said, "I would rather not dwell on that because maybe some of hers are some of the ones I have. You're just intent on getting the job done. Sometimes it's very time-consuming and difficult to coddle those who have other agendas."

Wilkinsburg Police Chief Ophelia "Cookie" Coleman, a longtime friend who was a robbery detective in Pittsburgh, said even if Cmdr. Brackney erred, she would not be the first or only police supervisor to do so and should not be singled out.

"Yes, there have been bosses that have protected other folk throughout the history of the police department, and if they want to be honest with themselves, if, in fact, this is what she did, we just can't dismiss that. Police don't operate in a vacuum, and we can't dismiss the fact that favors have been done. They just weren't caught," Chief Coleman said.

"RaShall Brackney has always been a good officer. I don't see where RaShall would ever let friendship harm her career," Chief Coleman said.

Chief Coleman said she talked to Cmdr. Brackney after the incident came to light.

"I called her to ask what can I do to help you. She just told me that she needed my prayers, and I told her she had that automatically," Chief Coleman said.

First Published: March 26, 2007, 4:00 a.m.