A new report revealed a disturbing group chat between several Mississippi police officers and deputies, some of whom were part of the infamous “Goon Squad” who exchanged numerous messages and jokes describing how they’d degrade and brutalize suspects.
Mississippi Today and The New York Times uncovered that text thread from an encrypted WhatsApp group showing chat members sharing images of rotting corpses, making racist comments about Mexicans, trading jokes about rape, taking nude pictures of female suspects, and poking fun at the violence they’d inflict on citizens in police custody.
In one conversation, one deputy asked, “How many points is a shoot out?”
“Depends on if they die or not,” a lieutenant answered.
Two deputies responded with, “They’ll die,” and “They die.”
The group also swapped other disturbing texts describing how they’d Taser people in their faces and private parts, joking about having sex with people who died by suicide, murder, or car accidents while showing pictures of their corpses, and plotting a mock murder of a man involved in a hit-and-run.
“Nothing scares a man like kidnapping him,” one deputy wrote.
“I’m down to make some bad choices.”
“They’ll never solve it.”
“We can burry him on my place. And burn his car. Hell I already got a burnt car on my land that I’m 95% sure is stolen.”
One deputy even shared a video of an officer defecating on someone’s bed.
“I was laughing so hard that day I couldn’t hardly breath,” the deputy said of the video.
“Good times, lol.” another responded.
Included in that chat were three former Rankin County deputies and “Goon Squad” members Hunter Elward, Daniel Opdyke, and Jeffrey Middleton, who pleaded guilty to kidnapping, torturing, and sexually assaulting two Black men last year. They’re serving back-to-back state and federal prison sentences of 15 to 45 years alongside former deputies Brett McAlpin and Christian Dedmon, as well as former Richland police officer Joshua Hartfield.
Federal prosecutors say Goon Squad members Tasered Michael Jenkins and Eddie Parker, used a sex toy to torture them, then shot Jenkins in the mouth, nearly killing him.
During a probe of that heinous attack, the Justice Department confirmed the officers used a WhatsApp chat to discuss the torture plot, but it’s unclear if they used the same chat that Mississippi Today and the Times discovered.
The Rankin County Sheriff’s Office released a statement on Wednesday stating that neither the department nor Sheriff Bryan Bailey “knew of the existence of a shift of officers who called themselves the ‘Goon Squad’ until a bill of information was filed in federal court.”
Officials added that the former deputies who were part of the group “coordinated their criminal activity via private text messaging, presumably in an attempt to avoid detection by this Department and Sheriff Bailey.”
The office confirmed to CNN that three individuals still employed by Rankin County were added to the chat by a former deputy.
Most of the attorneys for the Goon Squad members declined to comment on the group chat.
Opdyke’s lawyer provided a statement to CNN.
“The explanation by some that they were just ‘joking’ about torturing people in their what they thought were secret WhatsApp texts rings hollow given the multiple incidents of torture that have now been documented,” attorney Jeff Reynolds said.
