Six former law enforcement officers in Mississippi who tortured and sexually abused two Black men for more than an hour during a home raid pleaded guilty to federal civil rights charges.
The Justice Department believes there is evidence to show excessive force, including a shocking incident where one of the officers allegedly shot one of the men in the mouth in a mock execution gone awry. The federal indictment shows that the deputies forced a dildo in the men’s mouths and attempted to sodomize one of the men with it.
The charges against five former Rankin County sheriff’s deputies and another officer were unsealed in court on Thursday, Aug. 3.
The defendants made their appearance before a magistrate, and later in the morning, they appeared before U.S. District Judge Tom Lee, who took their guilty pleas, WAPT reported.
“We wanted justice, and we are walking in the pages of justice in this hour,” said an attorney for the victims Malik Shabazz during a press conference Thursday.
The names of the former RCSD employees charged are Hunter Elward, Christian Dedmon, Brett McAlpin, Jeffrey Middleton, and Daniel Opdyke, and former Richland K9 police officer Joshua Hartfield. They are facing over a dozen counts.
The men, all white, were charged with conspiracy against rights, deprivation of rights under the court of law, conspiracy to obstruct justice, and obstruction of justice.
Dedmon and Elward are facing additional charges of using, carrying, or brandishing a firearm during an act of violence, which carries a potential life sentence.
“They came into court shackled and bound … a far cry from the arrogance, the laughing, the mockery, from the heinous police brutality of January 24,” Shabazz said.
According to the indictment, on Jan. 24, Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker, both Black men, were at a residence in Braxton when deputies barged into the premises without a warrant.
Jenkins and Parker had come to the attention of the self-styled “Goon Squad” deputy group because a white neighbor had called McAlpin to complain the Black men were living with the white woman who owned the residence.
After unauthorized entry, the deputies turned off their body cameras, allegedly placed them in handcuffs, stunned Parker and Jenkins with Tazers dozens of times, and poured milk, alcohol and syrup on their mouths and faces.
During the about an hour-and-a-half encounter, the deputies assaulted the men with a white-fleshed colored sex object. Dedmon attempted to force the dildo into Jenkins’ buttocks, but he stopped after he saw the man defecated on himself, according to the indictment.
The incident reached its climax when one of the deputies allegedly placed a gun inside Jenkins’ mouth, pulled the trigger, and shot him, the document claims. The man would undergo surgery to have his tongue removed.
After the abuse, the deputies forced the men to strip naked and shower together.
In February 2023, the Justice Department initiated a civil rights investigation based on Jenkins’ and Parker’s allegations.
In June 2023, the two also hired lawyers and filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Rankin County, seeking a substantial sum of $400 million in damages.
Rankin County Sheriff Bryan Bailey said the deputies have all been fired.
It was later disclosed that Hartfield was the sixth law enforcement officer involved in the raid. During the incident, he was off duty. He was subsequently dismissed from his position because he decided to participate in the torture of the two men.
Prosecutors have advised the court to hold the defendants in custody until their sentencing in November, which could bring terms as long as 120 years in prison plus life for some of the group.
The state also announced charges against the group on Thursday, and all six are slated to plead guilty to those charges on Aug. 14.
