Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson on Aug. 15, 2014.(Photo: Scott Olson, Getty Images)
Embattled Ferguson, Mo., Police Chief Thomas Jackson, whose department received scathing criticism from the Justice Department for racially biased policing, will resign March 19, city officials said.
Jackson, 57, becomes the third top city official to leave following the Justice Department's investigation that found systemic racial bias by police and court officials. Judge Ronald Brockmeyer and City Manager John Shaw resigned earlier this week.
Lt. Col. Al Eickhoff will serve ask acting chief until the city completes a nationwide search for a new police chief, the city said in a press release. Jackson will receive a severance payment and health insurance for one year.
That Justice Department's review found Ferguson Police Department engaged in a broad pattern of racially biased enforcement that permeated the city's justice system, including the use of unreasonable force against African American suspects. The report also criticized the city's municipal court system.
Brittany Packnett, 30, executive director of Teach For America St. Louis, who helped organize protests in Ferguson after a white police officer shot Michael Brown, 18, an unarmed black man, said she's encouraged to see months of demands for accountability met with personnel changes, but the Ferguson and other cities must take more substantial steps to address systemic problems and shot they are "serious about justice and fairness."
Ferguson should
"comb through the recommendations" from the Justice Department until it has met every requirement and recommendation, she said.
"There's a great deal of work for Ferguson's police department and city government to do to stop the kinds of predatory practices that have held the community under siege," she said.
Missouri Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadal, who represents the city in the state legislature, welcomed the resignation.
"I'm elated," she said. "We have been waiting for him to go for months and he was so hardheaded about leaving. He put his personal interests before Ferguson and the region."
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