FERGUSON, Mo. (AP) – The police chief in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson resigned Wednesday in the wake of a scathing Justice Department report prompted by the fatal shooting of an unarmed black 18-year-old by a white police officer.
The city said in a statement that it reached a mutual separation agreement with Chief Thomas Jackson, who will get a severance payment and health insurance for a year. Lt. Col. Al Eickhoff will become acting chief March 19 while the city searches for a replacement.
Jackson had previously resisted calls by protesters and some of Missouri’s top elected leaders to step down over his handling of the August shooting of Michael Brown and the weeks of sometimes-violent protests that followed.
Text and phone messages were left with Mayor James Knowles III and Jackson, who submitted a four-sentence letter in which he said he was announcing his resignation with profound sadness.
He told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that he felt it was time for the city to move on.