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Roundup: Ferguson police chief resigns following DOJ report

Xinhua, March 12, 2015 Adjust font size:

Ferguson police chief Tom Jackson resigned Wednesday, after a U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) report pointed out a culture of racism within the police department and municipal offices in the Missouri town.

Jackson said he felt it was time for the city to move on in an interview with local media St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

The resignation will be effective from March 19, and an interim chief will be appointed from within the department while the city searches for a replacement from all America.

The resignation of Jackson is the latest leadership shakeup in the city. On Tuesday, the city manager of Ferguson John Shaw stepped down after the City Council voted 7 to 0 to approve a "mutual separation agreement" with John Shaw, according to Mayor James Knowles.

On Monday, the Missouri State Supreme Court said that it has appointed a judge to decide all of Ferguson's municipal court activities after the town's judicial system was embroiled in racism and other controversies. Municipal Judge Ronald Brockmeyer also resigned Monday.

Jackson said in his resignation letter that it has been an honor and a privilege to serve Ferguson and to serve the people, adding that he will continue to assist the city as a private citizen.

James Knowles III, the mayor of Ferguson, praised Chief Jackson' s service in a press conference Wednesday evening and said it was a decision made between Jackson and the mayor officials.

"To Ferguson residents, business owners and to the entire country, the City of Ferguson looks to become an example of how a community can move forward in the face of adversity," Mayor Knowles said.

According to Knowles, Jackson will receive a severance payment and health insurance for one year.

Hours after the announcement, protesters gathered outside the Ferguson Police Department, chanting "Fight back" when they faced a line of police officers.

Ferguson, which is in the suburbs of St. Louis, a city in the U.S. state of Missouri, has been at the center of racial tensions nationwide since Darren Wilson, a white police officer, shot and killed Michael Brown, an unarmed black 18-year-old, in August last year.

A DOJ report released one week earlier found systematic racism within the Ferguson Police Department. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder warned last week the DOJ reserves the rights to force immediate change in Ferguson policing and court practice.

Protesters around the country have participated in demonstrations to decry racial injustice and police brutality last year in massive responses to the decisions by two separate grand juries in Ferguson, U.S. State of Missouri, and Staten Island, New York City, which declined to indict the white police officers responsible for the deaths of 18-year-old Michael Brown and 43-year-old Eric Garner, both unarmed and killed by white policemen. After shooting of Michael Brown in August, Jackson and his department was under wide criticism, but be denied resignation. Endi