JACKSON, Mrs. — Six former Mississippi law enforcement officers who pleaded guilty to a long list of state and federal charges for torturing two black men will be sentenced in state court on Wednesday.
The six white former Mississippi law enforcement officers who attacked Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker in January 2023 have already been sentenced to federal prison terms ranging from about 10 to 40 years. In March, U.S. District Judge Tom Lee called their actions “egregious and despicable” when he sentenced five of the six men near the top of the federal guidelines.
Rankin County Circuit Judge Steve Ratcliff will sentence all six suspects on state charges Wednesday. They agreed to sentences recommended by prosecutors, ranging from five to 30 years. Time served on the state sentences will run concurrently with the federal sentences, and the men will serve their time in federal prisons.
The case sparked outrage from the nation’s top law enforcement officials, including Attorney General Merrick Garland, who said the officers committed a “heinous attack on citizens they were sworn under oath to protect.” In the episode’s grisly details, local residents saw echoes of Mississippi’s history of racist brutality at the hands of authority figures.
Malik Shabazz, an attorney representing Jenkins and Parker, said the state sentencing hearing would be a “test” for Ratliff and prosecutors.
“The state’s criminal sentencing is important because the state of Mississippi has historically fallen behind or ignored racist crimes and police brutality against Black people, and the Department of Justice has had to take the lead,” Shabazz said.
The defendants include five former Rankin County sheriff’s deputies — Brett McAlpin, 53, Hunter Elward, 31, Christian Dedmon, 29, Jeffrey Middleton, 46, and Daniel Opdyke, 28 — and a former Richland city police officer, Joshua Hartfield. 32, who was off duty during the attack.
All six former officers pleaded guilty to charges of obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct prosecution. Dedmon and Elward, who kicked in a door, also admitted to home invasion.
The charges followed an Associated Press investigation in March that linked some officers to at least four violent encounters since 2019 that left two Black men dead.
The former police officers admitted breaking into a home without a warrant and torturing Jenkins and Parker in an hours-long attack that included beatings, repeated use of stun weapons and attacks with a sex toy before one of the victims was shot in the mouth shot.
The terror began on January 24, 2023, with a racist call for extrajudicial violence, federal prosecutors said.
A white man called Rankin County Deputy Brett McAlpin and complained that two black men were staying with a white woman at a home in Braxton, Mississippi. McAlpin told this to Christian Dedmon, who texted a group of white officers who were so willing to use excessive force that they called themselves “The Goon Squad.”
Once inside, they handcuffed Jenkins and his friend Parker and poured milk, alcohol and chocolate syrup on their faces while taunting them with racial slurs. They forced them to undress and shower together to hide the mess. They mocked the victims with racist comments and abused them with sex objects.
In a botched mock execution, Elward shot Jenkins in the mouth, breaking his tongue and jaw. The officers came up with a cover and agreed to plant drugs on Jenkins and Parker. False accusations were made against the men for months.
McAlpin and Middleton, the oldest of the group, threatened to kill other officers if they spoke up, prosecutors said. According to his attorney Jeff Reynolds, Opdyke was the first to admit what they did. Opdyke showed investigators a WhatsApp text thread in which the officers discussed their plan, Reynolds said.
The only defendant not to receive a federal prison sentence at the top of the sentencing guidelines was Hartfield, who did not work in a sheriff’s department with the others and was not a member of the “Goon Squad.”
In federal court, deputies expressed remorse for their behavior and apologized to Jenkins and Parker. Several of their attorneys said their clients became enmeshed in a culture of corruption encouraged by leaders in the sheriff’s office.
Rankin County Sheriff Bryan Bailey did not reveal details about his deputies’ actions when he announced they had been fired last June. After pleading guilty in August, Bailey said the officers had acted rogue and promised changes. Jenkins and Parker have 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. Follow him at @mikergoldberg.