A former Mississippi sheriff’s deputy convicted of torturing two Black men in 2023 has asked a federal judge to reduce his 27-year sentence, arguing that he merely waited in his truck while his fellow officers carried out the crime.
Brett McAlpin is one of six former white law enforcement officers who pleaded guilty in 2023 to breaking into a home in Jackson without a warrant and taking part in a brutal assault that lasted several hours.
The officers were sentenced in March, with terms ranging from 10 to 40 years.
McAlpin, 53, was chief investigator for the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department at the time of the crime.
He is serving a 27-year sentence, the second-longest among the defendants, at a federal prison in West Virginia.
Just months into his term, McAlpin claims in a legal filing that the sentence was “unreasonable” because he stayed behind in his truck and didn’t play a direct role in the actual torture of Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker.
McAlpin’s attorney, Theodore Cooperstein, filed the motion to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on August 23, stating that McAlpin was merely present while other officers committed the heinous acts, hoping this would lessen his punishment.
“Brett was drawn into the scene as events unfolded and went out of control, but he maintained a peripheral distance as the other officers acted,” Cooperstein wrote, according to The Associated Press.
The other former Rankin County Sheriff’s deputies are Hunter Elward, Christian Dedmon, Jeffrey Middleton, and Daniel Opdyke, and former Richland K-9 police officer Joshua Hartfield.
The filing argues for leniency despite McAlpin’s failure to do anything to help the victims during the ordeal and his role in transporting the crew to and from the crime scene.
“Although Brett failed to stop things he saw and knew were wrong, he did not order, initiate, or partake in violent abuse of the two victims,” the motion states.
The filing urges the appeals court to overturn McAlpin’s sentence and to direct a district judge to impose a shorter one.
Cooperstein argued that the cumulative impact of the atrocities overshadowed McAlpin’s individual role, causing him to bear the brunt of the collective condemnation, suggesting that the court and public’s overall perception of the events unfairly amplified his punishment.
McAlpin’s appeal does not specify the exact number of years he hopes to have reduced from his sentence.
The motion significantly downplays McAlpin’s involvement, but his appeal for relief contrasts sharply with Mississippi’s strict sentencing guidelines for violent crimes involving torture.
The law in Mississippi emphasizes accountability for those who assist in serious felonies, and McAlpin’s argument does not change the fact that his actions still played a significant role in the crimes against Jenkins and Parker.
The attack on Jan. 24, 2023, included beatings, use of stun guns, repeated assaults with a sex toy, and ended with one victim being shot in the mouth as part of a mock execution gone wrong when gun did not dry fire.
The crime was so appalling that it drew condemnation from U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland.
“The depravity of the crimes committed by these defendants cannot be overstated,” Garland said after the group of former officers received federal sentences.
Before he was sent away on March 21, McAlpin offered an apology in open court but did so without making eye contact with the victims.
“This was all wrong, very wrong. It’s not how people should treat each other and even more so, it’s not how law enforcement should treat people,” McAlpin said. “I’m really sorry for being a part of something that made law enforcement look so bad.”
Previously, federal prosecutor Christopher Perras argued for a lengthy sentence, asserting that while McAlpin was not a direct member of the Goon Squad, he played a crucial role in shaping the group into the violent enforcers they became.
One of the victims also described McAlpin as functioning like a “mafia don,” saying he directed the officers throughout the attack.
Prosecutors noted that the younger deputies frequently sought to impress McAlpin, with the attorney for Daniel Opdyke, revealing that his client regarded McAlpin as a father figure.
Perras said some of the deputies involved started off “wanting to be good law enforcement officers” but ultimately “turned into monsters.”
“How did these deputies learn to treat another human being this way? Your honor, the answer is sitting right there,” Perras argued during the trial, pointing at McAlpin.
Prosecutors said the nightmarish ordeal was set in motion when a neighbor contacted McAlpin to complain about two Black men living with a white woman in the small town of Braxton.
Despite no crime having been committed, McAlpin relayed the information to Deputy Christian Dedmon, who then reached out to a reputed group of white deputies known as “The Goon Squad” — notorious for brutality and excessive force.
On the night of the attack on Jenkins and Parker, the deputies barged into the home without a warrant, turned off their body cameras, and began roughing up the victims while berating them with racial slurs.
They handcuffed the pair, stunned Parker and Jenkins with Tazers dozens of times, and poured milk, alcohol and chocolate syrup over their heads.
They then forced the victims to strip and shower together in an attempt to wash away the evidence.
Jenkins survived the gunshot to his mouth, although it lacerated his tongue and broke his jaw.
The deputies conspired to cover up the crime, but all backfired when the attack came to light.
In the ensuing investigation, it was discovered that the group swapped disturbing text messages on WhatsApp, 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.
The horrific details of the case recalled Mississippi’s painful history of racist abuses by law enforcement authorities. However, this time, the perpetrators faced severe consequences for their actions, a fact highlighted by the victims’ attorneys.
U.S. District Judge Tom Lee condemned the former officers’ actions as “egregious and despicable,” imposing sentences close to the maximum allowable under federal guidelines for five of the six men involved in the attack.
The six former officers also pleaded guilty to state charges and were sentenced in April.
Hartfield, a former Richland police officer who was not part of the sheriff’s department or the “Goon Squad,” was the only defendant to receive a sentence below the maximum recommended by federal guidelines. Judge Lee sent him away for 10 years.
Dedmon received 40 years, Opdyke and Middleton were both sentenced to 17.5 years, and Elward was handed a 20-year sentence.
