DOJ Reaches Out-of-Court Settlement With Lexington, Mississippi, Police Over 2024 Civil Rights Findings
The Justice Department has reached an out-of-court settlement agreement with the City of Lexington, Mississippi, and its police department to address civil rights violations the department described in a 2024 findings report, the department announced Oct. 16.
The agreement is not a court-supervised consent decree. It was signed by the parties and is dated Sept. 14, 2026, according to the document posted on the Justice Department’s website.
In September 2024, the Justice Department found that the Lexington Police Department engages in a pattern or practice of civil rights violations. The investigation, run by the Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Mississippi, began in March 2023, the department said.
“The Department of Justice supports local law enforcement,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Civil Rights Division. “We are very pleased that the City of Lexington and the Lexington Police Department reached an agreement to enhance the lawful and essential activities of the police department and its officers as they continue to protect and serve the citizens of Lexington and its surrounding areas,” Dhillon said.
U.S. Attorney J.E. Baxter Kruger said the agreement “reflects a shared commitment to meaningful and sustainable change.”
WHAT THE LEXINGTON POLICE SETTLEMENT REQUIRES
According to the agreement, the police department may impose new fines or fees, including arrest processing fees, only after a documented, individual determination of whether the person can pay, or a showing that the person willfully refused to pay. The agreement says it does not limit the city’s ability to lawfully hold suspects before trial or lawfully collect fines.
People who are not released must get an individual bail hearing before a judge within 48 hours of arrest, the agreement says. The city and police must also ask the court to dismiss existing warrants for unpaid fines and fees imposed in violation of state law and to expunge convictions based on such fines.
The city may not run quotas or incentives, formal or informal, tied to stops, citations, arrests or fine revenue, and it must publicly report each year how much of its revenue comes from fines and fees.
On policing, the agreement requires reasonable suspicion for stops and probable cause for arrests, bars arrests or retaliation based solely on speech protected by the First Amendment, and requires officers to document every stop. Officers must write a detailed report after every use of force, and supervisors must review it.
HOW IT WILL BE ENFORCED
The Justice Department may hire consultants to check compliance, at the federal government’s expense, and will get read-only access to the city’s body camera, use-of-force, citation and arrest records, according to the agreement. The city bears the burden of proving it has substantially complied.
The agreement lasts three years and can be extended by mutual agreement if the city has not reached substantial compliance. If the department finds a violation, the city has 30 days to fix it; if it does not, the department may go to federal court in the Southern District of Mississippi.
No statement from Lexington city officials was included in the Justice Department’s announcement, and none was found in published reports reviewed Saturday night.
Sources: U.S. Department of Justice press release (Oct. 16, 2026); Settlement Agreement between the United States and the City of Lexington and the Lexington Police Department (Sept. 14, 2026). https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-reaches-settlement-agreement-city-lexington-mississippi-regarding ; https://www.justice.gov/crt/media/1465906/dl
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