Yet another lawsuit has been filed against a small-town in Mississippi, its mayor, and former and current officers of the police department with local Black residents claiming cops engaged in systemic Jim Crow-like racial discrimination.
On Jan. 20, 17 plaintiffs in Lexington, Mississippi, and nearby counties collectively filed a civil complaint against the city’s police department, accusing officers of making false arrests, using excessive force, and intentionally trying to kill them.
“[Lexington Police Department’s] tactics against Black citizens are like those recommended for use by the United States Army to quell armed rioters in occupied nations. These tactics are wholly unnecessary on peaceful Americans,” the lawsuit states. “Unfortunately, the excessive force used… is part of a pattern, practice, and custom of corruption, lawlessness, excessive force, false arrests, retaliation, and discrimination visited upon hundreds of Black citizens.”
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Activists have officially been building a case against the city of Lexington since 2020 with the launch of JULIAN, a local human-advocacy organization spearheading the lawsuit against Lexington.
In July 2022, JULIAN leaked racist audio from the department’s then-Chief Sam Dobbins, in which he bragged about the number of times he shot a Black man. JULIAN then sued the city of Lexington in Aug. 2022, demanding the protection of the city’s Black residents. The Mississippi chapter of the ACLU also sued the city of Lexington in Aug. 2023 and again in October, followed by an investigation into racism by the U.S. Department of Justice in November.
According to the new lawsuit, Lexington police officers repeatedly harassed Black residents in or near the city—including serving unjustified tickets and impounding cars on private property without search warrants—simply because of their race. In turn, this would cause Black residents to miss days at work or repeatedly have to pay high fees that would continue to accumulate, the lawsuit claimed.
“In stark contrast, Defendant Dobbins never ordered property to be seized from Lexington’s white communities and even reprimanded an officer when she attempted to tow a vehicle out of a white resident’s yard,” the lawsuit alleged.
Police officers also allegedly made Black residents do unofficial work to pay off inconsistently-priced fines. The officers allegedly fined victims without tickets or court dates to contest the fees.
Jill Collen Jefferson, an attorney on the case and founder of JULIAN, said the entire city is at fault. Jefferson says she’s also been a victim of the Lexington police after filing a lawsuit against the department in the summer of 2023 for the “brutal mistreatment” of residents.
“It’s the entire city, starting with the mayor,” she said in an interview with The Daily Beast Tuesday. “It’s definitely systemic.”
In one case according to the recently filed lawsuit, complainant Crystal Wallace suffered a miscarriage in 2021 after city police allegedly yanked her out of her vehicle while in a parking lot and threw her to the ground.
Another complainant Leroy Secherest said he was retaliated against for interfering when two officers used excessive force on a woman with mental disabilities and he posted about the incident on social media. He says that after the incident in May 2023, police apprehended him and subjected him to abuse similar to what he witnessed, leaving him with injuries and difficulty walking for weeks. According to the lawsuit, Secherest had to go to the emergency room three times due to the pain he endured and still has discomfort walking.
In May 2023, 65-year-old complainant Leon Lewis said officers turned the heat up in their van on a sweltering day after detaining him for allegedly using improper tags on his vehicle.
“Mr. Lewis, who has preexisting conditions, believes [the officer] was trying to kill him,” the lawsuit read.
When he finally managed to get to a hospital for chest pains and a headache, doctors said Lewis was in “danger of having a heart attack or stroke.”
The lawsuit also claims the Lexington Police Department excessively used stun guns and created roadblocks as pretexts to stop, search, and falsely arrest Black drivers. Officers allegedly accused Black drivers of driving inebriated, but refused to conduct sobriety tests. Despite nearly 20 plaintiffs listed on the lawsuit, Jefferson said many more were initially included but were frightened of retaliation from the city.
Dobbins, who had been fired from a previous department for “discriminatory and abusive police practices” prior to his employment with the department in 2021, preferred uncertified officers, according to the lawsuit.
“Police officers in Mississippi must obtain certification, which requires that officers meet a set of requirements, including training at a police academy and obtaining a high school diploma or equivalent to prove they possess the basic competency necessary to carry out the duties of a police officer,” the complaint read. “Officers who lack certification are not allowed to conduct arrests, use force, bear arms, or exercise any of the powers of a police officer without being under the direct control and supervision of a certified officer.”
“All of those uncertified officers were allowed to make arrests without supervision, carry deadly weapons, and use force, in violation of state law,” the lawsuit read.
Former Lexington Police Department officer Derrick Scott testified in an affidavit that “Blacks are not allowed to travel and thrive freely under the watch of the department.”
“It is my assessment that [the Lexington Police Department] operates under a slavery system with the intent of hindering the progress of Black residents for their own selfish gain,” he said. “The practice of falsely arresting innocent Black residents… causes them to remain in poverty and prohibits them from a better quality of life.”
Jefferson says officers don’t care about the mounting lawsuits because the city operates “white supremacy at its finest.”
“This is the first investigation of its kind into a police force this small, and LPD in the face of this is still saying, ‘I don’t give a damn,’” Jefferson claimed. “When DOJ leaves Lexington at 5 p.m., by 6 p.m. LPD is back to doing the same mess as they were doing before.”
Jefferson wants the city to rectify some of the damage it’s done by paying the victims.
“People need their money back because this city has broken its residents, like broken them in terms of emotions, of their spirit, of their hearts, but also broken them in terms of their wallet,” she said. “They have preyed on them, so much so to where people, who are the most vulnerable people, already have basically nothing now. And so part of our goal is to restore that.”
The mayor’s office did not immediately return The Daily Beast’s request for comment Tuesday. The police department declined to make a statement.
