Thomas Jackson has increasingly come under fire for his department’s alleged racial bias and overly zealous ticketing. Ferguson police chief steps down

The embattled head of police in the city of Ferguson, Missouri, announced Wednesday that he’s stepping down.

In a resignation letter posted by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Thomas Jackson stated that he will be stepping down, effective March 19.


“It is with profound sadness that I am announcing I am stepping down,” he wrote.

On Wednesday evening, Ferguson’s Mayor James Knowles said that Jackson will receive one year’s severance of $96,000 and that Lt. Col Al Eickhoff, who joined the Ferguson Police Department last August, will take over as police chief when Jackson leaves.

“It’s very hard for him to leave, for us to have him leave,” Knowles said of Jackson.

The mayor added that he is committed to keeping the Ferguson Police Department intact, despite calls for its dissolution and rumors of an impending county takeover, and cited meetings with consultants who reassured him that keeping the force is financially feasible.

Knowles said that he plans to stay in office and “steer the ship,” in spite of the turmoil.

Jackson — who had led the police department since 2010 — increasingly came under fire for his department’s alleged racial bias and overly zealous ticketing.

Allegations of these breaches, as well as multiple other constitutional infractions, were outlined in a Justice Department report released last week.

The DOJ report recalls conversations between Jackson and other city officials, where they discuss pursuing a goal of $1.5 million in new revenue for the city by increasing fines and over-ticketing.

“When another commander tried to discipline an officer for over-ticketing, he got the same response from the Chief of Police [Jackson]: ‘No discipline for doing your job,’” the report read.

The report recalled an instance when one resident called the police to report a “domestic disturbance” only to be arrested for a permit violation once the police arrived and noticed that the woman’s boyfriend, who was not on the lease, lived inside of the home.

Multiple emails sent over official city email accounts revealed racial bias among “several police and court supervisors, including FPD supervisors and commander” during the time period when the police served under Jackson’s watch.

One email sent in April 2011 by a Ferguson city official portrays President Barack Obama as a chimpanzee. Another sent in June of the same year said that a man was looking to get his dogs on “welfare” because they are “mixed in color, unemployed, lazy, can’t speak English and have no friggen clue who their Daddies are.”

The report also found that the FPD did not preform comprehensive reviews regarding use of force. When DOJ officials asked the police department for documents that discussed use of force, they were given “incomplete” and “scattered” records.

“These recordkeeping problems also explain why Chief Jackson told us he could not remember ever imposing discipline for an improper use of force or ordering further training based on force problems,” the report said.

Jackson had already drawn fire for commenting in February to CBS News that “there is not a racial problem in the [Ferguson] police department,” despite weeks of protests alleging racism in the department following the shooting of an unarmed teenager by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson last August.

The police chief was also roundly criticized for releasing surveillance footage of Michael Brown, the unarmed teen shot by Officer Wilson, stealing cigarrillos shortly before his death.

Critics charged that the video was immaterial to Brown’s shooting and was distributed in an effort to quell public sympathy for the deceased.

Attorney General Eric Holder called his department’s investigation into the Ferguson police “searing” and vowed to push for immediate change in the city, noting that his staff would keep all options on the table, including dismantling the police department “if that’s what’s necessary.”

Jackson’s resignation follows that of City Manager John Shaw, who officially left office on Tuesday, and that of Municipal Court Judge Ronald Brockmeyer, who stepped down Monday.

The Ferguson City Council voted Tuesday night to divide Shaw’s duties between existing departments in the city government. It’s not yet clear who will take over Jackson’s responsibilities.