Officials with the U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division announced today that, after a nearly yearlong investigation, they have reason to believe the City of Lexington and its police force engage in both patterns and practices that violate the constitutional rights of residents.
According to the full, 47-page findings document, those violations infringe upon civil rights protected under the First, Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments – namely freedom of speech, protections from unreasonable searches and seizures and equal treatment under the law.
In addition to that, DOJ officials say police in Lexington have violated the Safe Streets Act and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.
In their remarks, Justice officials pointed to numerous examples of specific abuses they uncovered during the probe, such as conducting stops and searches without probable cause, often using excessive force in the process; jailing those who criticize the police or swear in public, targeting Black residents with a ‘stop and fine’ policy and wanton use of force against Black residents.
They also say the Lexington Police Department itself relies on funding from the money it raises through its law enforcement, which presents an unconstitutional conflict of interest.
“Lexington’s fines and fees have been absolutely devastating for the people who live there,” said Kristen Clarke, Assistant Attorney General for the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division. “Although Lexington is in one of the poorest counties in America, people owe the police department $1.7 million in outstanding fines. The Lexington municipal court has issued bench warrants for over 650 people based on unpaid fines — equivalent to roughly half of Lexington’s population.”
“Based on these warrants, police officers have unlawfully arrested and jailed people, using the leverage of incarceration to extract more money from them.”
The county seat of rural Holmes County, Black residents of Lexington for years have alleged that both the police department and the city government engages in patterns and practices that target Black residents, who comprise roughly 77 percent of the town’s population.
The Delta town also has a deep-running history of Civil Rights activism, and is among one of the nation’s poorest counties by median household income.
Through what residents say has become a culture of violence, sexual assaults, racially biased policing, false arrests and excessive force, a fear of something as routine as traveling through town has become reason for some to move entirely.
In June 2023, dozens of Lexingtonians gathered for a closed-door community listening session with Clarke to air their concerns. The pattern and practice investigation was announced later that year.
By February 2024, while in the middle of the investigation, DOJ officials addressed a letter to the City of Lexington and its police force demanding they end their practice of automatically jailing people for unpaid fines. Residents and community activists who spoke with MPB News at the time said that was an example of the impunity Lexington Police officers have grown to enjoy in the town.
Todd Gee, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi, says it’s now time for both police and city leaders to be accountable and enact much-needed reform.
“Despite this poverty, our investigation found that Lexington’s police department funds its very existence by imposing and collecting fines for petty offenses allegedly committed by the City’s low-income residents and the few people passing through this small town about 15 miles from the nearest interstate,” Gee said.
“In effect, Lexington has turned the jail into the kind of debtors’ prisons Charles Dickens described in his novels written in the 1800s. Only this is happening in Mississippi in 2024.”
According to Gee and Clarke, both city and police officials in Lexington have agreed to work with the DOJ to implement reforms to their pattern and practice. But those same officials, including the town’s mayor Robin McCrorie and police chief Charles Henderson, still face civil suits and potentially millions in punitive damages.