The U.S. Department of Justice announced Friday it reached a settlement forcing reforms in a Mississippi city and its police department, which the DOJ found discriminated against Black people, used excessive force and retaliated against critics.
The settlement comes after a scathing 2024 DOJ report said the Lexington Police Department routinely violated citizens' civil rights in the rural, poor, majority-Black city located about 65 miles (100 kilometers) north of the state's capital. Police targeted Black people for arrests, made arrests for low-level offenses to generate money for the police department and locked people up for extended periods of time if they could not afford to pay fines, according to the report.
