JACKSON, Miss. (AP) – Sentencing was handed down Thursday for Mississippi's last two former police officers, accused of entering a home without a warrant and torturing two black men with four other white officers. He pleaded guilty, but the judge called the act “outrageous and despicable.” ”
Former Rankin County Deputy Brett McAlpin, 53, and former Richland Police Officer Joshua Hartfield, 32, are scheduled to appear separately before U.S. District Judge Tom Lee. They could face long prison terms for attacking victims with stun guns and sex toys before one of them was shot dead.
Lee on Wednesday sentenced 29-year-old Christian Dedmon to 40 years in prison and 28-year-old Daniel Opdyke to 17 1/2 years in prison. They, along with McAlpin, were working as Rankin County sheriff's deputies at the time of the attack. On Tuesday, Lee sentenced two more former Rankin County deputies. Hunter Elward, 31, was given nearly 20 years, and Jeffrey Middleton, 46, was given 17 and a half years.
In March 2023, months before federal prosecutors announced charges in August, an Associated Press investigation found that some deputies had been involved in at least four violent encounters with Black men since 2019, and two It was found that one person was killed and one person was seriously injured.
The former officers, some of whom referred to themselves as the “goon squad,” stuck to the cover story for months before finally admitting to torturing Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker. Elward admitted that he put the gun in Jenkins' mouth and fired, but federal prosecutors said it was a “mock execution” that went awry.
Mr. Lee has sentenced each of the senators sentenced so far to prison terms near the maximum of the sentencing guidelines.
The attacks began on January 24, 2023, when a white man in Rankin County accused McAlpin of two black men staying at Braxton's home with a white woman, calling for extrajudicial violence. It started with a speciesist call. Mr. McAlpin told Mr. Dedmon that he texted a group of white senators asking if they could “join the mission.”
“No bad mugshots allowed,” he texted. Prosecutors say using excessive force on body parts that aren't visible in the booking photo is a green light.
Dedmon brought in Hartfield, who was instructed to cover the back door of the property in case of trespassing.
Once inside, officers handcuffed Jenkins and his friend Parker and poured milk, alcohol and chocolate syrup on their faces. They were forced to strip naked and take a shower together to hide the confusion, and Ms. Hartfield guarded the bathroom door to prevent the men from escaping. They taunted the victims with racial slurs and shocked them with stun guns. Dedmon and Opdyke assaulted them with sex toys.
After Elward shot Jenkins in the mouth, splitting his tongue and breaking his jaw, they devised a cover-up that included planting drugs and guns. Mr. Jenkins and Mr. Parker were falsely accused for months.
Rankin County, a predominantly white county located just east of the state capital, Jackson, has one of the highest percentages of black residents of any major city in the United States. The officers yelled at Jenkins and Parker to “leave Rankin County and go back to Jackson or 'their side' of the Pearl River,” according to court documents.
Mr. Opdyke was the first to admit his actions, his attorney Jeff Reynolds said Wednesday. On April 12, Opdyke showed investigators a WhatsApp text thread in which officers discussed the plan and what happened. If he had thrown his phone into the river like other officers, investigators might never have discovered the encrypted messages.
Lawyers for several of the deputies said their clients were caught up in a culture of corruption that was not only tolerated but encouraged by the leadership of the Sheriff's Office.
Rankin County Sheriff Brian Bailey, who took office in 2012, did not provide details about the actions of the deputies when he announced last June that he had fired them. After they pleaded guilty in August, Mr. Bailey said the officers committed misconduct and promised to change the department. Mr. Jenkins and Mr. Parker demanded his resignation and filed a $400 million civil lawsuit against the department.
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Michael Goldberg is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.please follow him @mikergoldberg.
