BOSTON (AP) — A jury has ordered the Massachusetts State Police to pay $6.8 million after a finding that it discriminated against female and minority troopers.

The verdict confirmed Tuesday by a Suffolk Superior Court clerk came in a lawsuit accusing the agency’s leadership of enabling a discriminatory process for hiring and promotions that kept women and people of color from rising through the ranks.

The 2016 lawsuit accused leadership of handpicking candidates for jobs before they were posted and enabling a “pattern of discriminatory practices that prevent many from obtaining choice assignments throughout the department.”

A group of current and former state troopers that included women, Black and Hispanic officers, said employees who were not male or white were regularly passed over f

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