The six white former Mississippi officers who entered guilty pleas to breaking into a home without a warrant and abusing two black individuals have completed their sentencing.
High-ranking Former deputy Brett McAlpin, 53, was sentenced this week by U.S. District Judge Tom Lee as the fifth former law enforcement official. McAlpin had admitted guilt to the attack, which included beatings, multiple stun gun uses, and assaults with a sex toy before one of the victims was shot in the mouth. Joshua Hartfield, a 32-year-old former Richland police officer, was the last member of the group to be sentenced on Thursday afternoon. He received a term of roughly ten years.
McAlpin covered up the name of the jail where he is being held on Thursday by dressing in an inside-out jumpsuit.
Everything in this was extremely incorrect. McAlpin stated, not turning to face the victims, “It’s not how people should treat one another, and even more so, it’s not how law enforcement should treat people.” “I sincerely apologize for my involvement in anything that damaged law enforcement’s reputation.”
On Wednesday, Lee handed down sentences to Daniel Opdyke, 28, for 17.5 years, and Christian Dedmon, 29, for 40 years. On Tuesday, he granted Hunter Elward, 31, around 20 years, and Jeffrey Middleton, 46, 17.5 years. With the exception of Hartfield, all worked for the Rankin County Sheriff’s Office outside of the capital city of Mississippi; some of them went by the nickname “The Goon Squad.”
McAlpin was a probation officer and the fourth-highest-ranked officer in the Rankin County Sheriff’s Office. Arguing for a lengthy sentence, federal prosecutor Christopher Perras said McAlpin was not technically a member of the Goon Squad but “molded the men into the goons they became.”
Parker testified before investigators that McAlpin, who was not wearing a uniform and was off duty at the time of the incident, behaved like a “mafia don” and gave the cops orders all evening. Opdyke’s lawyer said on Wednesday that his client saw McAlpin as a father figure, despite the prosecutor’s claims that other deputies frequently attempted to impress McAlpin.
Perras said on Thursday that the younger deputies, who had already received their sentences, were having difficulty understanding how they had begun as “decent law enforcement officers and evolved into monsters.”
How did these deputies come to know how to treat another person like this? “Your honor, the solution is right there,” Perras remarked, turning to gesture to McAlpin.
Months before August 2023, accusations were made by federal prosecutors. In March 2023, 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 officers maintained their cover story for months before eventually acknowledging that they had tortured Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker. They had also planted a gun and drugs at the scene of the crime and made up bogus accusations against the victims. Elward acknowledged that he had fired a gun into Jenkins’ mouth in what the federal prosecution claimed was a “mock execution.”
Jenkins claimed he “felt like a slave” and was “left to die like a dog” in a statement that was read aloud by his lawyer on Thursday.
“God help us all if the Rankin County Sheriff’s Office’s administrators are capable of engaging in this kind of torture. God bless Rankin County, too,” Jenkins murmured.
Lee imposed prison sentences at the top of the sentencing guidelines for all of the culprits, except for Hartfield.
The terror began on January 24, 2023, when a white person complained about two black men staying with a white woman at a house in Braxton. Dedmon, a white deputy, was instructed to cover the back door of the property during their illegal entry. The officers mocked the victims with racial slurs, shocked them with stun guns, handcuffed them, and poured milk, alcohol, and chocolate syrup over their faces. They assaulted them with a sex toy and forced them to strip naked and shower together to conceal the mess. After Elward shot Jenkins in the mouth, they devised a coverup and agreed to plant drugs. False charges stood against Jenkins and Parker for months. Prosecutors said that McAlpin and Middleton threatened to kill the other officers if they spoke up. The majority-white Rankin County is just east of 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.”
(AP)
