(CN) — A small police department in Mississippi has become the 11th in the nation to be reviewed by the Biden administration’s Department of Justice for systemic constitutional violations.
During a news conference held in Jackson Wednesday, Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke announced the Lexington Police Department — with fewer than 10 officers patrolling a town of 1,600 people, 86% of whom are Black — will be examined for excessive uses of force, civil and constitutional rights violations during stops, searches and arrests, and discriminatory policing that violates people’s rights to engage in constitutionally protected speech and conduct.
Since Biden took office, the DOJ has launched similar investigations into the Phoenix Police Department, the Louisiana State Police and the New York City Police Department’s Special Victims Unit, among others. Investigations in previous years have led to agreements between the DOJ and police departments in Seattle, Minneapolis, Memphis and Louisville to change law enforcement practices.
Lexington is the seat of Holmes County, whose median household income of just $21,375 makes it the poorest county in the poorest state in the nation. It is also recognized as the second poorest county in the nation outright, behind South Dakota’s Buffalo County. It is about an hour north of the state’s capital, Jackson.
Noting the Lexington investigation was spurred by publicly available information and interviews with stakeholders, Clarke said, “residents of rural and underserved communities have the same rights and deserve the same protection” as residents in larger cities, while “small and midsize police departments cannot and must not be allowed to violate civil rights with impunity.”
Clarke said the Lexington Police Department has been accused of arresting people without legal justification, using force against people who posed no threat, establishing illegal roadblocks to target Black drivers and retaliating against people exercising their rights to question police action and record police activity.
“Community members have offered troubling accounts of how these alleged practices have affected their lives,” Clarke said, with some documenting “injuries caused by force, alleged sexual assaults, repression and reprisal.”
In June, the Lexington Police Department arrested a civil rights attorney after she filed several complaints about the department to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The attorney, Jill Collen Jefferson, had pulled off the road in Lexington to record an officer as he conducted a traffic stop on another motorist. She was immediately interrogated by the officer and offered her ID, but when she refused his commands to step out of her vehicle, Jefferson was arrested on charges of failure to comply, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.
Jefferson spent the weekend in jail before the charges were dropped, but she continues to document the department’s abuses on a website linked to her nonprofit organization. Jefferson did not reply to requests for an interview by press time.
Perhaps more concerning was an audiotape leaked to news outlets in August 2022 featuring Lexington Police Chief Sam Dobbins bragging about killing 13 people in the line of duty, while casually dropping racist and homophobic slurs. Dobbins, who is white, was quickly fired after the tape was released, but the department continues to be staffed by many of the same officers who served with Dobbins.
Clarke noted that, as part of a separate investigation in August, the Department of Justice obtained guilty pleas from six former Mississippi law enforcement officers who beat and tortured two Black men in custody.
“Underserved communities in the Deep South will not be left behind as we carry out our work to ensure constitutional policing across America,” Clarke said.
U.S. Attorney Todd W. Gee of the Southern District of Mississippi said the allegations in Lexington are “serious” and the department determined “a thorough investigation is necessary.”
Investigators will examine incident reports, legal documents, audio and video recordings, as well as department policies and procedures. Officers and officials will be interviewed, while the DOJ will also scrutinize the city’s collection of fines and fees and systems of accountability.
“Good police work is done fairly and legally every day in many places in America and in Mississippi,” Gee said. “The investigation we are launching here today will ensure the residents of Lexington receive the same from their police force. If our investigation determines the Lexington Police Department has committed a pattern or practice of civil right violations, I hope the remedies we reach will ensure that this police force can fight crime, protect the civil rights of the community and also serve as a good example for small rural police forces throughout Mississippi and around the nation.”
Follow @gabetynes
Subscribe to Closing Arguments
Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.
