Police chief stays on job

Associated Press

ST. LOUIS

Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson was still on the job Friday, two days after a government report blasted his beleaguered department for years of racial profiling, and the mayor refused to speculate about the chief’s future, saying his role was not to “just chop heads.”

Meanwhile, three Ferguson employees implicated in racist emails exposed by that report are now gone from their jobs, the mayor said.

Calls for Jackson’s removal were renewed again this week after the Justice Department cleared Darren Wilson, the white former Ferguson officer who shot Michael Brown, of federal civil-rights charges in the death of the 18-year-old, who was black and unarmed.

A second report released simultaneously found patterns of racial profiling, bigotry and profit-driven law enforcement and court practices in the St. Louis suburb that has come to represent the tension between minorities and American police nationwide.

Asked about Jackson in an interview with The Associated Press, Mayor James Knowles III said only, “He’s still the chief.”

Knowles said city leaders are evaluating the Justice Department report “line by line” before deciding on reforms.