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Even before this week, Thunder Bay was grappling with some fearsome public-relations challenges.

The northwestern Ontario city’s police force has been accused repeatedly of racism in its handling of a string of drowning deaths of indigenous teenagers.

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The force and its civilian board are under separate provincial investigations, the police chief himself was charged in May with obstruction of justice, and the city as a whole recorded the highest rate of hate crimes in the country, according to Statistics Canada.

Then came Friday. To cap off the dismal news, Thunder Bay’s mayor, an ex-cop named Keith Hobbs, was charged with extortion and obstruction of justice, as were his wife and another woman.

The facts of the case remain largely a mystery and Hobbs – who’s taking a three-month leave — has strongly professed innocence. But clearly, the pall over the city grew noticeably blacker, even as acting mayor Trevor Giertuga tried to make the best of it.