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Ferguson City Manager Resigns After Charges of Racism


FILE - The entrance to the Ferguson, Mo., Police Department.
FILE - The entrance to the Ferguson, Mo., Police Department.

The city manager of Ferguson, Missouri has resigned after a highly critical U.S. Justice Department report called the midwestern city's police racially biased against African Americans.

John Shaw was responsible for the city's operations and was one of its most powerful officials.

On Monday, the Missouri Supreme Court announced it was taking over all cases in Ferguson's city court. Municipal Judge Ronald Brockmeyer resigned.

Ferguson, a suburb of St. Louis, is still reeling from last August's shooting death of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown during a confrontation with white officer Darren Wilson. Brown had been suspected of shoplifting.

The shooting set off days of violence in the city.

Wilson was not charged with violating any federal civil rights laws. But the Justice Department investigated charges that Ferguson's nearly all-white police force was biased against the city's black majority, including arbitrary traffic stops, arrests and tickets.

The report said city officials operated its courts as a money-making venture.

President Barack Obama said last week that he fully stands behind the report, saying Ferguson's black residents were harassed, mistreated, abused, called names and fined.

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