Current:Home > StocksLast 2 Mississippi ex-officers to be sentenced for torturing 2 Black men in racist assault-Angel Dreamer Wealth Society D1 Reviews & Insights
Last 2 Mississippi ex-officers to be sentenced for torturing 2 Black men in racist assault
View Date:2024-12-23 18:17:20
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Sentencing concludes Thursday with the last two former officers in Mississippi who pleaded guilty to breaking into a home without a warrant with four other white policemen and torturing two Black men, an act the judge called “egregious and despicable.”
Former Rankin County deputy Brett McAlpin, 53, and former Richland police officer Joshua Hartfield, 32, are set to appear separately before U.S. District Judge Tom Lee. They face lengthy prison terms for attacking the victims with a stun gun, a sex toy and other objects before one of the victims was shot.
Lee gave a 40-year prison sentence Wednesday to 29-year-old Christian Dedmon and a 17.5-year sentence to 28-year-old Daniel Opdyke. Along with McAlpin, they worked as Rankin County sheriff’s deputies at the time of the attack. On Tuesday, Lee sentenced two more former Rankin County deputies. He gave nearly 20 years to 31-year-old Hunter Elward and 17.5 years to 46-year-old Jeffrey Middleton.
In March 2023, months before federal prosecutors announced charges in August, an investigation by The Associated Press linked some of the deputies to at least four violent encounters with Black men since 2019 that left two dead and another with lasting injuries.
The former officers, some of whom called themselves the “Goon Squad,” stuck to their cover story for months until finally admitting that they tortured Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker. Elward admitted to shoving a gun into Jenkins’ mouth and firing it in what federal prosecutors said was a “mock execution” that went awry.
For each of the deputies sentenced so far, Lee has handed down prison terms near the top of the sentencing guidelines.
The terror began Jan. 24, 2023, with a racist call for extrajudicial violence when a white person in Rankin County complained to McAlpin that two Black men were staying with a white woman at a house in Braxton. McAlpin told Dedmon, who texted a group of white deputies asking if they were “available for a mission.”
“No bad mugshots,” he texted — a green light, according to prosecutors, to use excessive force on parts of the body that wouldn’t appear in a booking photo.
Dedmon brought Hartfield, who was instructed to cover the back door of the property during the illegal entry.
Once inside, officers handcuffed Jenkins and his friend Parker and poured milk, alcohol and chocolate syrup over their faces. They forced them to strip naked and shower together to conceal the mess, and Hartfield guarded the bathroom door to make sure the men didn’t escape. They mocked the victims with racial slurs and shocked them with stun guns. Dedmon and Opdyke assaulted them with a sex toy.
After Elward shot Jenkins in the mouth, lacerating his tongue and breaking his jaw, they devised a coverup that included planting drugs and a gun. False charges stood against Jenkins and Parker for months.
The majority-white Rankin County is just east of the state capital, Jackson, home to one of the highest percentages of Black residents of any major U.S. city. The officers shouted at Jenkins and Parker to “stay out of Rankin County and go back to Jackson or ‘their side’ of the Pearl River,” court documents say.
Opdyke was the first to admit what they did, his attorney Jeff Reynolds said Wednesday. On April 12, Opdyke showed investigators a WhatsApp text thread where the officers discussed their plan and what happened. Had he thrown his phone in a river, as some of the other officers did, investigators might not have discovered the encrypted messages.
Attorneys for several of the deputies have said their clients became ensnared in a culture of corruption that was not only permitted, but encouraged by leaders within the sheriff’s office.
Rankin County Sheriff Bryan Bailey, who took office in 2012, revealed no details about his deputies’ actions when he announced they had been fired last June. After they pleaded guilty in August, Bailey said the officers had gone rogue and promised to change the department. Jenkins and Parker have called for his resignation, and they have filed a $400 million civil lawsuit against the department.
___
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.
veryGood! (63879)
Related
- California Gov. Gavin Newsom will spend part of week in DC as he tries to Trump-proof state policies
- Man who fatally shot 2 teens in a California movie theater is sentenced to life without parole
- Indiana man pleads guilty to threatening Michigan election official after 2020 election
- The Daily Money: Let them eat cereal?
- Lions QB Jared Goff, despite 5 interceptions, dared to become cold-blooded
- Proof copy of Harry Potter book, bought for pennies in 1997, sells for more than $13,000
- Family Dollar Stores agrees to pay $41.6M for rodent-infested warehouse in Arkansas
- Reigning WNBA MVP Breanna Stewart re-signs with New York Liberty
- Eminem, Alanis Morissette, Sheryl Crow, N.W.A. and Janet Jackson get Songwriters Hall of Fame nods
- FDA warns against smartwatches, rings that claim to measure blood sugar without needles
Ranking
- Cold case arrest: Florida man being held in decades-old Massachusetts double murder
- A mower sparked a Nebraska wildfire that has burned an area roughly the size of Omaha, officials say
- Kentucky lawmakers advance bill allowing child support to begin with pregnancy
- She missed out on 'Mean Girls' 20 years ago — but Busy Philipps got a second chance
- It's about to be Red Cup Day at Starbucks. When is it and how to get the free coffee swag?
- Why does the US government think a Kroger-Albertsons merger would be bad for grocery shoppers?
- See Olivia Wilde and More Celebs Freeing the Nipple at Paris Fashion Week
- Georgia will spend $392 million to overhaul its gold-domed capitol and build new legislative offices
Recommendation
-
Horoscopes Today, November 9, 2024
-
Ole Anderson, founding member of the pro wrestling team known as The Four Horsemen, has died
-
U.S. and U.K. conduct fourth round of joint airstrikes on Houthi targets in Yemen
-
Proposed new Virginia ‘tech tax’ sparks backlash from business community
-
Why Dolly Parton Is a Fan of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's Little Love Affair
-
Eagles' Don Henley says 'poor decision' led to 1980 arrest after overdose of sex worker
-
Ariana Grande Addresses Media Attention Amid Ethan Slater Romance
-
Brandon Jenner, wife Cayley are expecting third child together