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 police in the small city of Lexington, Miss., routinely made unjustified arrests, used excessive force and trampled on civil rights, investigators said.

The police department in a majority-Black town in Mississippi has consistently violated the rights of residents with illegal arrests, as well as by retaliating against department critics, according to a Department of Justice report released Thursday.