In a small city in one of Mississippi’s poorest counties, a Department of Justice investigation determined that the Lexington Police Department engaged in a pattern of discrimination against Black people and used excessive force to retaliate against its critics in a report the Justice Department issued which details the department’s abuses.
According to The Associated Press, the Justice Department’s investigation uncovered a department that violated the rights of its citizens with impunity. Compounding these findings, the overwhelming majority of Lexington’s citizens are Black, making up approximately 76% of the population.
Officers used arrests and fines for low-level offenses to generate money for the department and left people in jail if they could not pay those fines. In addition, police officers sexually harassed women and threatened people if they challenged law enforcement.
According to United States Attorney General Merrick Garland, “Today’s findings show that the Lexington Police Department abandoned its sacred position of trust in the community by routinely violating the constitutional rights of those it was sworn to protect.”
Investigators traced the genesis of the racial disparities perpetuated by the department to a former chief, Sam Dobbins, a white man who was fired after his use of racial slurs and talking about how many people he killed on duty. It was under Dobbins, according to the Justice Department, when the arrests for low-level offenses began to dramatically increase.
According to the Justice Department, Lexington averaged over 10 times the per capita arrest rate for the entire state of Mississippi and a majority of those who were arrested were Black people.
According to Assistant Attorney General Kirsten Clarke the City of Lexington ran a scheme which penalized Lexington’s citizens for being poor. “In America, being poor is not a crime. But in Lexington, their practices punish people for poverty.” Clarke said.
According to Clarke, Lexington’s residents owe the police department a total of $1.7 million in fines and its city court authorized the arrest of approximately 650 people, almost half the city, because of unpaid fines. Jill Collen Jefferson, the president of JULIAN, a civil rights organization that filed a federal lawsuit against the Lexington Police Department in 2022, was arrested by the department in 2023.
Although Jefferson’s organization had documented the abuses of the department for years, the State of Mississippi failed to take any action. In a statement, Jefferson indicated her gratitude to Clarke and the Justice Department.
“I feel an intense amount of gratitude for Kristen Clarke,” Jefferson said. “We had to go to highest levels of the Department of Justice to get justice for this community. And I’m grateful that they listened. It shows that it doesn’t matter how tiny your town is, that your life matters. Finally, the day has come where the truth has come out.”
According to Todd Gee, the U.S.
Attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi, departments in small towns should pay attention to the Justice Department’s pursuit of small-town injustice and change their patterns and practices accordingly.“Gone are the days when rural isolation and remoteness could conceal the injustice of unconstitutional policing. Make changes now if your agency is policing in these same unlawful ways,” Gee said.
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