From Traffic Tickets to Taser Attacks: The Horrific Truth Behind Police Department's 'Pay or Stay' Scheme

When police are not held accountable, we can't expect them to respect our rights.

The Lexington Police Department (LPD) in Mississippi engaged in pervasive misconduct and systemic violations of civil rights, according to a Justice Department report released on Friday.

The report reveals widespread abuses carried out against members of the law enforcement agency. The DOJ’s investigation revealed patterns of unlawful arrests, excessive force, and racial discrimination. The local police department unlawfully jailed individuals for failing to pay fines and operated a corrupt financial incentive system, prioritizing revenue collection over public safety.

The LPD consistently violates the Fourth Amendment by making arrests without probable cause aggressively targeting low-level violators, leading to unwarranted stops and searches, according to the DOJ report.

“Officers repeatedly use excessive force. And while committing these constitutional violations, officers cross other professional lines as well, particularly by sexually harassing women while in uniform.”

The LPD illegally jails individuals who cannot afford to pay fines or fees, forcing people to pay bonds and fines without assessing their financial capabilities, the report explained. “Pay down your old fines or stay in jail until you do,” officers told arrestees.

“LPD regularly holds people in jail without promptly bringing them before a court, as the Constitution requires. When they want information from specific people, they detain and jail them on unconstitutional ‘investigative holds.’”

LPD in 2023 “collected more than $220,000 from fines, which made up nearly a quarter (23 percent) of LPD’s budget,” the report noted.

The Justice Department’s investigation uncovered evidence that LPD disproportionately targets Black residents. Black residents are more likely to be stopped, searched, arrested, and subject to excessive force than white residents. Some have even been recorded using racial slurs and boasting about committing violent acts against Black people.

“I shot that n----- 119 times, okay?” said former LPD Chief Sam Dobbins in a leaked recording.

Another officer boasted that he “didn’t give two fucks about his civil rights” when discussing a Black man he had assaulted.

“LPD disproportionately targets Black people for arrests, including by arresting Black people who commit traffic offenses while letting white people who commit similar traffic offenses leave without consequences.”

Investigators said, “In all the incidents we reviewed, we never saw LPD use force against a White person. We only saw LPD use force against Black people.”

As with many corrupt law enforcement agencies, the LPD operates without sufficient internal oversight or judicial accountability. Those who lodge complaints against officers are often met with retaliation.

“One little incident with a police officer can ruin your whole damn life,” said a resident who left the state to escape LPD harassment.

“The City lacks any meaningful accountability system, and LPD routinely retaliates against people who criticize the police, both by arresting them and by punishing them with force.”

The report documents several stories detailing the myriad of abuses LPD has meted out on residents.

Just after the DOJ announced its investigation into the LPD in November 2023, officers chased a Black man through a field and tased him nine times, leaving him foaming at the mouth. One officer noticed that his Taser probe stuck in the suspect’s hat. “Damn, one of my probes hit him in the head,” he remarked.

In another incident, officers arrested a Lexington resident after he purchased a cup of coffee at a local gas station. He refilled his cup without paying for a second cup. LPD immediately arrested him for theft and threw him in jail for four days.

Investigators found that the LPD routinely targeted low-level violations like these, using them as an opportunity to jail individuals and extract revenue in the form of fines.

“LPD adopted enforcement strategies to maximize arrests. In particular, LPD erected frequent checkpoints, where officers checked every car on the road for any violations of the law,” the report noted.

The goal? More arrests mean more money flowing into the department.

For those unable to pay the exorbitant fines on the spot, the consequences were dire. Officers are instructed to arrest people, no matter how small the infraction.

“She’s supposed to be arrested…So you need to take her ass to jail,” an LPD supervisor told an officer in a case involving a minor violation. Even something as trivial as a parking ticket or loud music complaint could quickly escalate to a jail sentence, according to the DOJ.

In a particularly egregious example, LPD officers pulled a man over for having a tinted windshield. What should have been a routine traffic stop quickly escalated to violence.

Instead of simply issuing a citation for something that should never have been a crime in the first place, the officers followed the man home and forced their way into his house without a warrant, eventually cornering him at his home. When his family questioned the officers’ actions, the response was blunt.

“Move out of the way,” an officer ordered as they pushed their way into the residence. Once inside, they tased the man, leaving his family in shock.

The incident report said the officer held the Taser for five seconds—the device’s automatic shutoff time—but then continued to deliver two more bursts of electric current. “The officer shocked the man for five seconds—the length of time [an] electrical current will run before the Taser automatically shuts off. But the officer pulled the Taser’s trigger two more times to shock the man for another ten seconds,”* the report states.

The officers took the man into custody after assaulting him.

One officer admitted to investigators that the LPD’s practices are intended to generate revenue, relying heavily on fines and fees to fund its operations.

“Every arrest that LPD makes generates funds for the police. This happens in several different ways,”* the DOJ report notes. Officers themselves are under pressure to make these arrests. “If we don’t arrest you, we get days at home [without pay]. I can’t afford no days at home,” the officer confessed.

These stories from Lexington reveal a police department out of control, where minor infractions can lead to life-altering consequences for residents. As the DOJ’s investigation makes clear, this isn’t just a problem of a few bad actors; it’s a systemic issue deeply embedded in the way the LPD operates.

While it is good that the Justice Department investigated the LPD, several other agencies are engaged in similar abuses. This story illustrates that government officials won't hesitate to abuse their authority when there is a lack of accountability and backlash from the community.