Some residents of a Lexington, Miss. where the Justice Department found severe problems with excessive and racially disproportionate policing, said they were unaware of the ongoing issues. Others said harassment from officers was a part everyday of life, the Associated Press reports. Lexington, population 1,200, is 60 miles north of Jackson. DON said it found a stunning pattern of racially disparate policing in a department “where officers can relentlessly violate the law.” Attorney Mike Carr represents several people charged with crimes in Lexington, with a 76% Black population. He said residents are often charged with resisting arrest, failure to comply and disorderly conduct — which Carr derisively calls the “holy trinity.” One of his clients, who is Black, was charged with those three counts after police saw him standing outside a nightclub with a beer in his hand. Officers shocked the man with a Taser and slammed him against a vehicle, Carr said.
Another client, Jill Collen Jefferson, said she was unlawfully arrested last year while filming Lexington police conducting a traffic stop. Jefferson, who is Black, is also an attorney and president of JULIAN, a civil rights organization that filed a federal lawsuit against the police department in 2022 alleging its officers had “terrorized” local residents. Jefferson has been documenting cases of police abuse in Lexington for years, but she said she was unable to get state officials to take action. More than half of police departments in the U.S. are small and lacking proper oversight, Jefferson said. DOJ said its investigation of Lexington is part of a broader effort to crack down on unconstitutional policing at small and mid-size police departments in the South. Last week, it opened a civil rights investigation into the Rankin County Sheriff's Department in Mississippi, where officers were convicted in the torture of two Black man in a racist attack that included beatings, repeated use of Tasers and assaults with a sex toy before one of the victims was shot in the mouth.
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