Ferguson city manager resigns

Ferguson City Manager John Shaw, who was criticized in the Justice Department's report for overseeing policies that led to discrimination, resigned Tuesday.

Shaw held the position since 2007. All seven of the city's council members voted for the move, which the city called a "mutual separation," according to the St. Louis Business Journal.

Shaw defended his work in a letter to the Ferguson community.

"While I certainly respect the work that the DOJ recently performed in their investigation and report on the city of Ferguson, I must state clearly that my office has never instructed the police department to target African Americans, nor falsify charges to administer fines, nor heap abuses on the backs of the poor," Shaw wrote. "Any inferences of that kind from the report are simply false."

In its report last week, the Justice Department said it found widespread civil rights abuses in both the Ferguson Police Department and the city's municipal court.

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