Historically in Mississippi, when local officials were breaking the law, the only people who might hold them accountable usually came out of Washington.
Those with investigatory or prosecutorial powers at the state level would be reluctant to pursue misbehaving county or city officials and employees, instead waiting for the federal government to clean up Mississippi’s messes.
In some circumstances, the situation has improved. State auditors have become more aggressive, starting with Ray Mabus’ tenure in the 1980s, in going after misspent or stolen public money. There are times when these efforts are stymied, though, by prosecutors or attorneys general who are afraid of offending the politically powerful.
It has been particularly difficult to get the attention of the state if those accused of breaking the law or violating their oath wear a badge. A case in point has been the recent Justice Department investigation into police misconduct in Lexington.
That investigation has produced a damning report, released last week. It confirmed what some vocal citizens say they have been complaining about for years to state officials, with little response. The report said that officers in Lexington, under both white and Black police chiefs, have routinely violated the rights of its predominantly Black residents — arresting them for petty offenses to generate money for the city, sexually harassing women, and threatening people with force or arrest if they challenged the officers’ conduct.
The statistics compiled by the Justice Department tell a story of rampant police harassment. Over the past two years, Lexington has made nearly one arrest for every four people in the town, an arrest rate that is more than 10 times the state average. In 2023, Black people in Lexington were almost 18 times more likely to be arrested than whites.
A similar investigation has been recently launched by the Justice Department into the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department. It has come under scrutiny after a member of the so-called “Goon Squad” of mostly Rankin County deputies last year shot a Black man in the mouth while he and a friend were being humiliated and tortured. Six lawmen have been prosecuted in state and federal courts, and all of them have received lengthy sentences.
Further investigation by the news media determined that this wasn’t an isolated incident but a pattern of excessive force used by some of these lawmen in Rankin County against other vulnerable residents of all races, such as those with drug habits. The Justice Department says it intends to find out how pervasive the abusive policing has been and whether it was racially motivated.
Both investigations are part of what the Justice Department says will be an expanding effort to crack down on unconstitutional policing in small and mid-size police departments, the kinds of institutions that often receive little outside oversight.
Mississippi shouldn’t depend mostly on the federal government to handle this problem. The state can and should do some of this cleaning up itself.
Following the publicity over the Rankin County case, the Legislature this year passed a law to make it easier to hold law enforcement officers accountable. It has given the State Board on Officer Law Enforcement Standards the authority to not just receive complaints but to investigate them, and to decertify officers who are found guilty of misconduct.
The law should help, but there also must be a commitment by long-established state authorities, such as district attorneys and the Attorney General’s Office, to take action when those charged with protecting the citizens are instead terrorizing them.
