Six white former law enforcement officers in Mississippi have pleaded guilty to federal charges in the beating and sexual assault of two Black men, one of whom was also shot in the mouth. The five former Rankin County sheriff’s deputies and another officer appeared in federal court and pleaded guilty to 13 federal felony offenses, including civil rights conspiracy, deprivation of rights under color of law, discharge of a firearm during a crime of violence, conspiracy to obstruct justice and obstruction of justice. The Associated Press has the story:
White 6 Ex-cops plead guilty to racist assault on 2 Black men
Newslooks- JACKSON, Miss. (AP)
Six White former Mississippi police officers, including some calling themselves “The Goon Squad,” pleaded guilty to a racist assault on two Black men that ended with an officer shooting one man in the mouth.
The officers, who are all white, entered a house without a warrant on Jan. 24, assaulting the men with a sex toy and using stun guns and other objects to abuse them over a roughly 90-minute period, court documents show. After one victim was shot and wounded in a “mock execution” that went awry, documents say the officers conspired to plant and tamper with evidence instead of providing medical aid.
The Justice Department launched its civil rights probe in February. The Mississippi attorney general’s office announced Thursday it had filed state charges against the six former officers, including assault, conspiracy and obstruction of justice.
Five former Rankin County Sheriff’s Department employees pleaded guilty, including Christian Dedmon, Hunter Elward, Brett McAlpin, Jeffrey Middleton and Daniel Opdyke. Joshua Hartfield, a former Richland police officer who was off duty when he participated in the raid, also pleaded guilty.
Dedmon, Elward and Opdyke also pleaded guilty to three federal felony offenses for a separate incident on Dec. 4. Prosecutors said Dedmon beat a white man, used a Taser on him and fired a gun near his head to coerce a confession, while Elward and Opdyke failed to intervene.
“The defendants in this case tortured and inflicted unspeakable harm on their victims,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said, adding they “egregiously violated the civil rights of citizens who they were supposed to protect.”
The civil rights charges come after an investigation by The Associated Press linked the deputies to at least four violent encounters with Black men since 2019 that left two dead and another with lasting injuries.
U.S. law enforcement brutality has come under increased scrutiny following the 2020 killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police and the January beating death of Tyre Nichols after a traffic stop in Memphis, Tennessee.
Kristen Clarke, who heads the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said the Mississippi officers “caused harm to the entire community who feel that they can’t trust the police officers who are supposed to serve them.”
Court documents say the officers took on the Goon Squad nickname “because of their willingness to use excessive force and not to report it.”
The victims, Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker, filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Rankin County in June seeking $400 million in damages. The victims are identified in documents only by their initials, but Jenkins and Parker have discussed the episode publicly.
The former officers, shackled at their wrists and feet, walked into the courthouse with family members and federal marshals took all six into custody. The defense attorneys did not comment on their clients’ behavior during the court appearance.
“They became the criminals they swore to protect us from,” U.S. Attorney Darren LaMarca said. “Now, they’ll be treated as the criminals as they are.”
U.S. District Judge Tom Lee said the men will be sentenced in mid-November. Dedmon and Elward each face a maximum sentence of 120 years plus life in prison and $2.75 million in fines. Hartfield faces a possible sentence of 80 years and $1.5 million, McAlpin faces 90 years and $1.75 million, Middleton faces 80 years and $1.5 million, and Opdyke could be sentenced to 100 years with a $2 million fine.
The men are scheduled to plead guilty to the state charges on Aug. 14, said Mary-Helen Wall, a deputy state attorney general.
The officers initially went to the home in Braxton because a white neighbor complained Black people were staying with a white woman who owned the house. The documents say Parker was a longtime friend of the homeowner and was helping care for her.
Officers used racist slurs against the two men during the raid and “warned them to stay out of Rankin County and go back to Jackson or ‘their side’ of the Pearl River — areas with higher concentrations of Black residents,” the documents say.
Elward shoved a gun into Jenkins’ mouth and fired, court documents say. The bullet lacerated Jenkins’ tongue and broke his jaw before exiting his neck.
Before the raid, the officers agreed to enter without a warrant if they could avoid being spotted by the home’s security cameras. They also planned to use excessive force but not to cause visible injuries to the men’s faces so there would be “no bad mugshots,” the documents say.
The deputies threw eggs on the handcuffed victims and forced them to lie on their backs while pouring milk, alcohol and chocolate syrup down their mouths. They forced the men to strip naked and shower to remove the evidence.
The officers also repeatedly electrocuted the victims with stun guns to compare whether the sheriff’s department or police department weapons were more powerful. One deputy, Middleton, offered to plant an unregistered firearm at the scene.
Court documents identified Opdyke and Dedmon as the suspects who assaulted the two men with the sex toy.
Despite recurring instances of police corruption and brutality, most officers are doing their jobs properly, said Keith Taylor, a criminal justice professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a former New York City police officer.
“In this situation, you have, of course, racism and just the inhumanity that exhibited itself in officers’ behavior,” Taylor said.
Rankin County Sheriff Bryan Bailey announced on June 27 that five deputies involved in the episode had been fired or resigned. Hartfield was later revealed to be the sixth officer and also was fired.
Bailey on Thursday said he first learned everything that happened to Jenkins and Parker when he read unsealed court documents.
“This is the most horrible incident of police brutality I’ve learned of over my whole career, and I’m ashamed it happened at this department,” Bailey said.
Malik Shabazz, an attorney representing Jenkins and Parker, thanked the Justice Department in a statement Thursday from Black Lawyers for Justice.
“These guilty pleas are historic for justice against rogue police torture in Rankin County and all over America,” Shabazz said. “Today is truly historic for Mississippi and for civil and human rights in America.”
How 6 Mississippi officers tried to cover up their torture of 2 Black men
Newslooks- JACKSON, Miss. (AP)
Men who had sworn an oath to protect and serve were huddled on the back porch of a Mississippi home as Michael Corey Jenkins lay on the floor, blood gushing from his mutilated tongue where one of the police officers shoved a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.
As Jenkins writhed in pain, the six white officers devised a scheme to cover up dozens of stunning acts of brutality that they had just carried out during 90 minutes of terror against Jenkins and a second Black victim.
The officers planted drugs. They stole surveillance footage from the house. They tried to dispose of other evidence. They agreed on a set of lies that would further upend their victims’ lives.
And that was just the cover-up.
Careful to avoid security cameras at the house, they burst in without a warrant, starting the physical, sexual and psychological abuse. They handcuffed Jenkins and his friend Eddie Terrell Parker and poured milk, alcohol and chocolate syrup over their faces. They forced them to strip naked and shower together to conceal the mess. They mocked the victims with racial slurs. They shocked them with stun guns.
The officers had meant to torture the men without leaving physical scars. But one shot Jenkins in the mouth. Miraculously, Jenkins survived.
The six officers pleaded guilty Thursday to a long list of federal civil rights charges. The Mississippi attorney general’s office announced afterward that it had filed state charges that include assault, conspiracy and obstruction of justice.
Law enforcement officers are seldom charged for crimes committed on the job, and it’s rarer still for them to plead guilty.
The charges follow an investigation by The Associated Press that linked some of the deputies to at least four violent encounters with Black men since 2019 that left two dead and another with lasting injuries.
The officers included Christian Dedmon, Hunter Elward, Brett McAlpin, Jeffrey Middleton and Daniel Opdyke of the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department and Joshua Hartfield, a Richland police officer. They pleaded guilty to charges including conspiracy against rights, obstructions of justice, deprivation of rights under color of law, discharge of a firearm under a crime of violence, and conspiracy to obstruct justice.
The terror began on Jan. 24 in a racist call for extrajudicial violence that felt like it was from a bygone era.
A white neighbor phoned Rankin County Deputy Brett McAlpin and complained that two Black men were staying with a white woman inside a Braxton home. McAlpin told Deputy Christian Dedmon, who texted a group of white deputies so willing to use excessive force they called themselves “The Goon Squad.”
“Are y’all available for a mission?” Dedmon asked. They were.
Opdyke “admits he was wrong for his part in the horrific harms” and “is prepared to face the consequences of his actions,” attorney Jason Kirschberg said in a statement.
Hartfield’s attorney Vicki Gilliam said while he “cannot change what he did, he has shown that he is ready to accept consequences.”
Attorneys for the other men did not respond to requests for comment.
The deputies were under the watch of Sheriff Bryan Bailey, who called it the worst episode of police brutality he has seen in his career.
Black residents on Friday expressed revulsion at the former officers’ actions, gratitude toward Jenkins and Parker for speaking out about their treatment, and relief that the officers were being brought to justice.
“When the people that you expect to protect you are the people who are hurting you and killing you, there just are no words to describe how it has affected the mindset, the mental state of our people,” said Angela English, the county’s NAACP president.
Law enforcement misconduct in the U.S. has come under increased scrutiny. The 2020 killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police ignited calls for sweeping criminal justice reforms and a reassessment of American race relations. The January beating death of Tyre Nichols by five Black members of a special police squad in Memphis, Tennessee, led to a probe of similar units nationwide.
In Rankin County, the brutality visited upon Jenkins and Parker was not a botched police operation, but an assembly of rogue officers “who tortured them all under the authority of a badge, which they disgraced,” U.S. Attorney Darren LaMarca said.
The majority-white county is just east of the state capital, Jackson, home to one of the highest percentages of Black residents of any major U.S. city. A towering monument topped by a Confederate soldier stands across the street from the Rankin County sheriff’s office.
Federal court records detail what happened.
As Jenkins lay bleeding, the officers knew the “mission” had gone too far. Instead of coming clean, they devised a hasty cover-up that included a fictitious narcotics bust and threats.
The officers warned Jenkins and Parker to “stay out of Rankin County and go back to Jackson or ‘their side’ of the Pearl River,” court documents say, referencing an area with higher concentrations of Black residents.
Kristen Clarke, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said the trauma “is magnified because the misconduct was fueled by racial bias and hatred” that recalled that a sheriff’s deputy was also involved in one of Mississippi’s most notorious crimes — the 1964 kidnapping and killing of three civil rights workers by Ku Klux Klan members.
After Dedmon summoned “The Goon Squad,” the officers crept around the ranch-style home to avoid a surveillance camera. They kicked down the carport door and burst inside without a warrant.
Opdyke found a sex toy, which he mounted on a nearby BB gun and forced into Parker’s mouth. Dedmon tried to sexually assault Jenkins with the toy. The officers used stun guns on them, comparing whose weapons were more powerful.
Elward forced Jenkins to his knees for a “mock execution,” intending to fire the gun without a bullet. But it was loaded, and discharged, cutting Jenkins’ tongue, breaking his jaw and exiting through his neck.
As Jenkins bled on the floor, the officers devised a cover story for investigators: Elward brought Jenkins into a side room to stage a drug bust over the phone and said Jenkins reached for a gun when he was released from handcuffs.
Middleton offered to plant an unregistered gun, but Elward said he would use the BB gun. Dedmon volunteered to plant methamphetamine he had received from an informant.
Prosecutors in Rankin County initially charged Jenkins with a felony based on the methamphetamine. That was later dropped.
Opdyke put one of Elward’s shell casings in a water bottle and threw it into tall grass nearby. Hartfield removed the hard drive from the home’s surveillance system and later tossed it in a creek.
Afterward, McAlpin and Middleton made a promise: They would kill any of the officers who told the truth about what happened.
The officers kept quiet as pressure mounted from a Justice Department civil rights probe. One came forward in June, Sheriff Bailey said.
Bailey said Thursday that he was lied to and only learned the truth when he read unsealed court documents. McAlpin and Elward worked under Bailey for years and were sued several times for alleged misconduct.
The sheriff said the deputies violated existing body camera rules by not wearing them when in uniform. He promised to mandate body cameras be turned on with fewer exceptions and said he was open to more federal oversight. He also called the officers “criminals,” echoing federal prosecutors.
“Now, they’ll be treated as the criminals they are,” U.S. Attorney LaMarca said.
