Questions, however, remain over the future of the city’s police department. Some residents and political leaders have said that it should be dissolved and that the St. Louis County Police Department should take over, as it has with other surrounding municipalities. Four of Ferguson’s 54 police officers are black.

Ferguson officials must still decide whether they will reach a settlement with the Justice Department or go to court to challenge some of the reforms that federal officials have requested be made to the police department and municipal court.

From the time that Officer Darren Wilson fatally shot Michael Brown, Chief Jackson has been under intense scrutiny. He said in the early days of unrest that he felt his department had a good relationship with the community. But many residents of Ferguson and surrounding communities used the killing as a springboard to raise larger issues of discriminatory policing and judicial actions that they said had been rampant in Ferguson and nearby towns for years.

Last year, after the Missouri State Police took charge of the city’s policing during the sometimes violent demonstrations and calm returned briefly to the city’s streets, Chief Jackson released surveillance footage that appeared to show Mr. Brown robbing a convenience store shortly before he was killed. That revelation reignited tensions, and new clashes between police and protesters ended with clouds of tear-gas.