Police repeatedly used excessive force, made unlawful arrests, ignored civil rights, and left over fifty percent of a small town of 1,200 people with a shocking $1.7 million owed fees and fines.
Following an all-encompassing two-year investigation that began in 2023, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that the city of Lexington, Mississippi, and the Lexington Police Department (LPD) have engaged in “a pattern or practice of conduct that deprives people of their rights under the U.S. Constitution and federal law.”
The DOJ conducted the investigation pursuant to 34 U.S.C. § 12601, which prohibits law enforcement officers from engaging in “a pattern or practice of conduct” that deprives people of rights protected by the Constitution or federal law. Section 12601 authorizes the Attorney General to file a lawsuit in federal court seeking court-ordered remedies to eliminate such a pattern or practice of unlawful conduct.
Lexington, MS, is a small town with a population of only 1,200 residents. Yet the DOJ reports that the police department “made nearly one arrest for every four people in town, primarily for low-level offenses and traffic violations.”
The DOJ report states that the staggering “total sum of outstanding fines owed to LPD is more than $1.7 million.”
These mostly non-criminal arrests (such as swearing or not paying fines) are over 10 times the per capita arrest rate for the state of Mississippi. The report states that a majority of those arrested were Black people, who were “17.6 times more likely to be arrested by LPD than white people were.”
The DOJ released a laundry list of the Lexington Police Department’s unlawful actions including that the LPD unlawfully:
- “Arrests, jails and detains people who cannot pay fines or fees, without assessing their ability to pay;
- Uses excessive force;
- Conducts stops, searches and arrests without probable cause, including jailing people on illegal “investigative holds” and arresting people solely because they owe outstanding fines;
- Imposes money bail without justification or assessment of ability to pay;
- Jails people without prompt access to court;
- Violates the rights of people engaged in free speech and expression, including by retaliating against people who criticize the police;
- Discriminates against Black people; and
- Operates under an unconstitutional conflict of interest because LPD’s funding depends on the money it raises through its enforcement.”
US Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said the findings clearly show that the Lexington Police Department violated residents’ constitutional rights and federal laws repeatedly, in a pattern of abuse.
“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,” said Mr. Garland.
Simultaneously, Mr. Garland reports that the illegal arrests, jailing and detention of residents, who could not afford to pay fees and fines, were “devastating” to the entire rural community.
"Being poor is not a crime, but practices like these amount to punishing people for poverty,” added Mr. Garland.
The official report includes findings that the small population not only lost confidence in its police department but also suffered because so many of the residents were unable to afford to pay fines.
Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said the actions of the Lexington police were a violation of the public’s civil rights, adding that the city’s “police department has had a heavy hand in people’s lives, wreaking havoc through use of excessive force, racially discriminatory policing, retaliation, and more.”
Among several striking examples shared by the DOJ, the Lexington Police Department officers “broke down a Black man’s door to arrest him for swearing at a public official. In another case, while attempting to arrest a man for having a tinted windshield, officers followed the man’s car to his house, forced their way into his home, and tased him for 15 seconds. On the same day the Justice Department opened the investigation, LPD officers chased a man accused only of disturbing a business and tased him nine times.”
The DOJ said the city of Lexington and Lexington Police Department “have committed to working cooperatively with the department to address the violations identified in the department’s findings.”
