The Vice Mayor of Portsmouth, Virginia, Lisa Lucas-Burke, is now facing charges after calling for the firing of their local police chief.
A white resident, Tommy Dubois, came up with the idea to create a criminal case against the vice mayor in a Facebook group, according to HuffPost. The state of Virginia authorizes citizens to bring criminal charges against others by making their case in front of a magistrate judge.
The Facebook group is calling for the removal of Lucas-Burke’s mother, Virginia State Sen. Louise Lucas. She is also known as the highest-ranked Black-female elected official in the state. Senator Lucas faced felony charges in June after protesting against Confederate monuments.
The senator allegedly told protesters they had the right to demonstrate and attempted to stop the arrest of two leaders, against Police Chief Angela Greene’s orders. Lucas and the group of protesters were arrested and charged with the conspiracy to commit a felony and injury to a monument over $1,000.
Virginia Beach attorney Tim Anderson is leading the Facebook group movement to get rid of Lucas, accusing her of inciting a riot, according to HuffPost. Currently, Lucas has a defamation lawsuit against Anderson.
Some people in the group believe the cases of both the mother and daughter show a pattern of misusing the criminal justice system for personal motives against Black politicians.
However, State Delegate Don Scott, who is representing Lucas, says the vice mayor’s public demand for the firing of the police chief constitutes a misdemeanor crime and would have been filed regardless of her race.
“It appears that the political enemies of Sen. Lucas are also the enemies of her daughter,” says State Delegate Don Scott, who is representing Lucas.
Scott also stated that he is one of many residents who support the police chief and stands on her identity as a Black woman as proof that their actions are not motivated by skin color.
“The race card I really don’t understand, because the police chief’s Black, the city manager’s Black, half the city council’s Black, half the city is Black, so I don’t understand throwing the race card out there at all,” Dubois said.
“She broke the law, or the city charter, which is essentially the law,” he continues. “You can’t have politicians doing whatever they want whenever they feel like it, and that would be for anybody, whether it was another city council member who was white, or whatever the case, I would do the same thing.”
Lucas-Burke is being charged with violating the “noninterference in appointments or removals” provision of the Portsmouth city charter, a hidden law that nevertheless remains on the books.
According to the HuffPost, the charges against Lucas-Burke carry no jail time. However, if she is convicted, she would be forced to resign from her position as a city council member and give up the vice mayor’s post.
Photo: Anita D. Pearson Photography