Six white former law enforcement officers have pleaded guilty to the beating and sexual assault of two Black men in Mississippi.
The five sheriff’s deputies from Rankin County and one other officer entered guilty pleas Thursday in federal court, where they were charged with 13 federal felony offenses, including civil rights conspiracy, deprivation of rights under color of law and obstruction of justice.
The crimes against Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker were “a horrific and stark example of violent police misconduct which has no place in our society today,” said Kristen Clarke, assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.
The attack on the two Black men is being called a “racist” crime after the deputies, who called themselves “The Goon Squad,” tortured the men for spending the night with a white woman.
The “squad” included Christian Dedmon, Hunter Elward, Brett McAlpin, Jeffrey Middleton and Daniel Opdyke of the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department and Joshua Hartfield, a Richland police officer.
Dedmon, Elward and Opdyke also pleaded guilty to using excessive force in a separate incident last year.
The 90-minute assault on Jenkins and Parker occurred late Jan. 24 after a white neighbor called McAlpin and asked if he and the squad were “available for a mission.”
The six officers, without a warrant, entered the home where Jenkins and Parker were staying, handcuffed the two and then assaulted them with a sex toy. They beat Parker with wood and a metal sword, then poured milk, alcohol and chocolate syrup over their faces before forcing them to strip naked and shower together.
Then, one of the officers put a gun in Jenkins’s mouth and fired.
“They left him lying in a pool of blood, gathered on the porch of the house to discuss how to cover it up,” Darren LaMarca, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi, said at the news conference in Jackson. “What indifference. What disregard for life.”
As Jenkins lay on the floor, blood gushing from his mouth, the officers ignored him to begin a cover up in which they fabricated a narcotics bust by planting a gun and drugs, according to The Associated Press.
Clarke called the assault on Jenkins and Parker “torture” and said the officers “sought to dehumanize their victims and to send a message that these two Black men were not welcome ‘on their side of the river.'”
The officers also face charges of aggravated assault, home invasion and obstruction of justice in the first degree. Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch announced the charges Thursday.
“This brutal attack caused more than physical harm to these two individual victims; it severed that vital trust with the people,” Fitch said in a statement, according to USA Today. “This abuse of power will not be tolerated.”
In March, an investigation by The Associated Press found several deputies involved in the alleged torture were also linked to at least four other violent encounters with Black men since 2019. Those encounters left two men dead and another with injuries.
Rankin County Sheriff Bryan Bailey said in June that all the officers involved had been fired or resigned.
Jenkins and Parker have also filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Rankin County, seeking $400 million in damages.