Here are 7 racist jokes Ferguson police and court officials made over email

Police in Ferguson, Missouri.Scott Olson / Getty Images News

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The US Department of Justice found many, many things wrong in its investigation into the Ferguson Police Department, including a pattern of racial bias. But perhaps the most disturbing findings were the racist email exchanges between police and court officials, which show outright hostility and prejudice toward the St. Louis suburb's black residents.

Here are the seven emails the Justice Department uncovered, all of which come from current employees and were apparently sent during work hours:

• A November 2008 email said President Barack Obama won't be president for long because "what black man holds a steady job for four years."
• A March 2010 email mocked African Americans with horrible stereotypes about their families and how they speak. One line of the email read, "I be so glad that dis be my last child support payment! Month after month, year after year, all dose payments!"
• An April 2011 email depicted President Obama as a chimpanzee.
• A May 2011 email said, "An African-American woman in New Orleans was admitted into the hospital for a pregnancy termination. Two weeks later she received a check for $5,000. She phoned the hospital to ask who it was from. The hospital said, 'Crimestoppers.'"
• A June 2011 email said a man wanted to obtain "welfare" for his dogs because they are "mixed in color, unemployed, lazy, can't speak English and have no frigging clue who their Daddies are."
• An October 2011 email had a photo of a bare-chested group of dancing women, apparently in Africa, with the caption, "Michelle Obama's High School Reunion."
• A December 2011 email made jokes based off offensive stereotypes about Muslims.

The Justice Department found no evidence that any of the police and court officials who engaged in these emails were ever disciplined. The investigation also found no indication that any official asked the sender to stop sending such emails, or any proof that the emails were reported. "Instead, the emails were usually forwarded along to others," the report stated.

The emails back an important point made by the Justice Department: the report argued the disparities in law enforcement can only be explained, at least in part, by unlawful bias and stereotypes against African-Americans. The exchanges show that outright racism very clearly.

The report noted that, although black people make up about 67 percent of Ferguson's population, 88 percent of documented uses of force by Ferguson police from 2010 to August 2014 were against African Americans. In the 14 police canine bite cases for which racial data was available, the people bitten were black.

There were similar racial disparities in traffic stops. From 2012 to 2014, 85 percent of people stopped, 90 percent of people who received a citation, and 93 percent of people arrested were black. Black drivers were more than twice as likely as their white counterparts to be searched during vehicle stops, but 26 percent less likely to have contraband.

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What are the Ferguson protests about?

Michael Brown was an 18-year-old black man who was shot and killed by police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri, on August 9, 2014. Brown, who was college-bound and had no criminal record, was unarmed, although local police accused him of robbing a convenience store moments before the shooting.

Brown's killing and the subsequent events in Ferguson have become a national controversy touching on much larger national issues of race, justice, and police violence.

The shooting almost immediately triggered protests in the St. Louis suburb, as demonstrators took to the streets to speak out against what many saw as yet another example of police brutality against young black men, for which Ferguson has a troubling record.

Tears roll down the cheek of Lesley McSpadden, the mother of slain teenager Michael Brown. (Scott Olson / Getty Images)

The situation subsequently escalated and drew national attention when police reacted to protesters, even those acting peacefully, with military-grade equipment, such as armored vehicles, tear gas, rubber bullets, and sound cannons.

One of major demands of protesters was to get prosecutors to put Wilson on trial for the Brown shooting. But a grand jury decided not to indict Wilson after three months of deliberations — in what many saw as a deeply flawed, biased investigation led by local officials with close ties to law enforcement.

The investigation into the shooting, inherently secretive grand jury proceedings, and subsequent reactions by local officials further worsened ties between local residents and their government, which is controlled by mostly white politicians despite Ferguson's majority black population.

The events in Ferguson captured national attention because, in many ways, they're indicative of the racial disparities many Americans, particularly minorities, see in the criminal justice system on a daily basis. While the specifics of the Brown shooting involve just one teen and one police officer in a small St. Louis suburb, the circumstances surrounding Brown's death replicate a fear commonly held by many parents — that black lives matter less, particularly in the face of increasingly heavily armed police who are carry tremendous legal freedom in whether they can shoot a suspect they merely perceive as dangerous.

13 things you should know about the Michael Brown shooting15 CARDS / EDITED BY GERMAN LOPEZ UPDATED JAN 25, 2015, 11:50P