Six former Mississippi law enforcement officers pleaded guilty this week to federal charges in the beating and sexual assault of two Black men earlier this year.
Five ex-Rankin County Sheriff’s Deputies and a former Richland police officer, all white, appeared in court Thursday and entered guilty pleas to 13 felonies, including civil rights conspiracy, deprivation of rights, discharge of a firearm during a violent crime, conspiracy to obstruct justice, and obstruction of justice, USA Today reported.
The six men burst into the home where Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker were living without a warrant on January 24. They spent about 90 minutes beating the two men, assaulting them with a sex toy, and repeatedly firing tasers at them. One of the deputies shot Jenkins in the mouth.
The indictment, which was unsealed on Thursday, in the Southern District of Mississippi identified the officers as former deputies Brett McAlpin, 52; Christian Dedmon, 28; Jeffrey Middleton, 46; Hunter Elward, 31; and Daniel Opdyke, 27; and former officer Joshua Hartfield, 31.
According to the indictment, Parker was living in the home of a longtime friend who needed help — a white woman — to take care of her. Jenkins was staying there temporarily. On the day of the attack, a neighbor complained to one of the officers about “suspicious” Black men in the neighborhood.
Later that night, the officer contacted a group of law enforcement who called themselves “The Goon Squad … because of their willingness to use excessive force and not report it.” He asked if they were “available for a mission.”
Among other things, the complaint said, the officers “poured milk, alcohol, and chocolate syrup on their faces and into their mouths,” and one “poured cooking grease” on Parker’s head. Another threw eggs at them, the Associated Press said.
Near the end, they ordered the men to strip and shower “to wash away evidence of abuse,” according to the complaint. Then they used a wooden kitchen implement, a metal sword, and pieces of wood to beat Parker.
The final act was a “mock execution” in which one officer fired his gun in Jenkins’ mouth, leaving him with critical injuries. They left after planting and tampering “with evidence to corroborate their false cover story and cover up their misconduct,” documents said.
“They left him lying in a pool of blood, gathered on the porch of the house to discuss how to cover it up,” Darren LaMarca, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi, said at the news conference in Jackson. “What indifference. What disregard for life.”
“The details of the crimes these defendants committed is a horrific and stark example of violent police misconduct which has no place in our society today,” said Kristen Clarke, assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, in a news conference Thursday.
Clarke called the attack “torture” and said the officers “sought to dehumanize their victims and to send a message that these two Black men were not welcome ‘on their side of the river.'”
Dedmon, Elward, and Opdyke also pleaded guilty to an excesseive force charge in a separate incident last year. In that incident, Dedmon coerced a confession out of a white man by beating and tasing him and firing a gun near his head while Elward and Opdyke watched and did nothing.
Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch announced on the same day that she had filed charges against the six officers for aggravated assault, home invasion, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy to obstruct justice. They are expected to plead guilt on August 14.
“This brutal attack caused more than physical harm to these two individual victims; it severed that vital trust with the people,” Fitch said. “This abuse of power will not be tolerated.”
The US Department of Justice opened an investigation into the incident in February. The following month, The Associated Press conducted an investigation that found some of the deputies involved had also been involved in at least four other violent encounters with Black men since 2019. Two of the victims in those attacks were killed and another had lasting injuries. Members of the Rankin County Sheriff’s Office Special Response Team — a tactical team with advanced training — were involved in all four of those incidents.
Jenkins and Parker have filed a civil suit against Rankin County, seeking $400 million in damages.
Sentencing on the federal charges is scheduled for November 14. LaMarca said the maximum sentence on all the charges is life in prison.
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[Featured image: FILE – Michael Corey Jenkins in March 2023/AP Photo/HG Biggs, File]
