Ferguson City Manager John Shaw, named by the Justice Department as one of the men responsible for the city's troubling policing practices in its damning civil rights report, has resigned, The New York Times reports.

According to NBC News, Ferguson's City Council unanimously approved a "mutual separation agreement" with Shaw Tuesday night.

"The City Council and John Shaw feel this is the appropriate time to move forward as we begin our search for a new city manager," Ferguson Mayor James Knowles III said in a statement.

Hired by Ferguson in 2007, Shaw served as the city's chief executive, putting him in charge of the courts and police force said by the Department of Justice to have practiced "intentional discrimination, as demonstrated by direct evidence of racial bias and stereotyping about African Americans by certain Ferguson police and municipal court officials."

Just yesterday, Ferguson Municipal Judge Ronald Brockmeyer resigned from his position and the Supreme Court of Missouri announced that all of city's current cases were being transferred to a state appeals judge.

UPDATE - 10:00 p.m.: Shaw has released a resignation letter, saying, in part, "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."

[Image via AP Images]