Sept. 26 (UPI) — The small town of Lexington, Miss., and its police department deprive people of their constitutional rights, discriminate against Black people, engage in excessive force and unlawfully jail people, the U.S. Justice Department announced Thursday.
“After an extensive review, we found that police officers in Lexington routinely make illegal arrests, use brutal and unnecessary force and punish people for their poverty,” said Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division Kristen Clarke. “For too long, the Lexington Police Department has been playing by its own rules and operating with impunity — it’s time for this to end.”
Among its findings, the Justice Department said the Lexington Police Department unlawfully arrests, jails and detains people who cannot pay fines or fees, uses excessive force, conducts stops, searches and arrests without probable cause.
The department, Justice officials say, also unlawfully jail people on “investigative holds” and arrest people solely because they owe outstanding fines. It jails people without prompt access to court, officials said, and the department violates the rights of people engaged in free speech and expression, including by retaliating against people who criticize the police.
Additionally, Justice officials said, the police in Lexington discriminate against Black people, and the department depends on the money it raises through its enforcement practices, an unconstitutional conflict of interest.
“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,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “The Justice Department’s investigation uncovered that Lexington police officers have engaged in a pattern or practice of discriminating against the city’s Black residents, used excessive force, and retaliated against those who criticize them.”
LPD has, on average, made nearly one arrest for every four people in town, the Justice Department said, mostly for traffic violations and other low-level offenses, nearly 10 times the rate of arrests in the state as a whole.
The Justice Department launched its investigation last November. It also said that Lexington’s enforcement strategy has put hundreds of people in debt. In a town of about 1,200 residents, people owe fines totaling more than $1.7 million to the LPD.