Mississippi Town’s Black Residents ‘Terrorized’ by Racist Police Seek DOJ Probe
Black residents of Lexington, Mississippi are calling for a U.S. Justice Department probe of systemic racism in the town as they filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday against the municipality, its police department, and current and former police officials, including an ex-chief fired for racist boasts about shooting a fleeing man 119 times.
The lawsuit—which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi—accuses the “deeply segregated” town of Lexington, the Lexington Police Department (LPD), former police Chief Sam Dobbins, and interim Chief Charles Henderson of subjecting Black residents to a pattern of excessive force, intimidation, and false arrests. More than 200 Black residents have complained about violations of their First, Fourth, and 14th Amendment rights.
The civil rights group and suit plaintiff JULIAN is seeking a temporary restraining order against the LPD and has contacted the U.S. attorney’s office and FBI to urge a federal investigation of systemic racism in the town and its police force.
“It’s both unconscionable and illegal for Lexington residents to live in terror and fear of the police department whose job is to protect them,” JULIAN founder and president Jill Collen Jefferson said in a statement. “We need both the courts and the Department of Justice to step in immediately.”
The suit, which notes that 23 LPD officers have resigned over the past year, alleges that the culture of Lexington is corrupt and that the city is in a sense under its own martial law with the police holding Black citizens hostage.
“The targeting, harassment, and corruption run so deep that most community members are afraid to speak to civil rights attorneys and activists out of fear of retaliation,” the document states. “Many of those who do talk do so only in the shelter of their homes or outside the city altogether. One woman even relocated her entire family to Memphis to escape LPD’s targeting and harassment.”
Lexington is a small, impoverished Delta town of around 1,800 residents in Holmes County about an hour’s drive north of Jackson. The town—which is 85% Black—has long suffered racist violence and a culture of impunity, including the 1946 lynching of Leon McAtee, whose murderers an all-white jury acquitted after 10 minutes of deliberation despite a confession by one of the killers.
Originally published at Commondreams.org.
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