WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department said on Thursday it found a series of civil rights violations by a small-town Mississippi police department, accusing officers of routinely using excessive force and arresting people who owed fines for minor traffic offenses.

The department’s Civil Rights Division said that it found that Black people in Lexington, Mississippi, were disproportionately targeted by an aggressive police enforcement strategy and that actions by police were driven in part by “intentional discrimination.”