A federal judge on Thursday sentenced six white former Mississippi law enforcement officers to about 10 to 40 years after pleading guilty to breaking into a home without a warrant and torturing two black men for an hour, including assault and repeated assaults. He completed his sentence of imprisonment. One of the victims was assaulted with a stun gun and a sex toy before being shot in the mouth.
U.S. District Judge Tom Lee called the attackers’ actions “outrageous and despicable,” including five of the six who attacked Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker in January 2023. handed down a sentence near the high end of federal guidelines.
The incident drew condemnation from top law enforcement officials around the country, including Attorney General Merrick Garland. In its gruesome details, locals saw echoes of Mississippi’s history of racist brutality by those in power. The difference this time is that those who abused their power paid a steep price for their crimes, victims’ lawyers said.
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“The despicability of the crimes committed by these defendants cannot be overstated,” Garland said Thursday.
Brett McAlpin, 53, who was the fourth-ranking officer in the Rankin County Sheriff’s Office, was sentenced Thursday to nearly 27 years in prison. Mr McAlpin nodded to his family in court. He apologized before sentencing, but he did not look at the victims while speaking.
McAlpin said, “This was all wrong, very wrong. This is not how people should treat each other, or even how law enforcement should treat people.” Stated. “I am truly sorry that I contributed to something that made law enforcement look bad.”
Chief civil attorney Malik Shabazz (left) announces the sentencing of a sixth former Rankin County law enforcement officer to 10 years in federal prison for his role with five other former Rankin County sheriff’s deputies. Celebrate with co-counsel Trent Walker’s raised hand. Racially Motivated Violent Torture of Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker on March 21, 2024, in federal court in Jackson, Mississippi. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
The only defendant at the top of the sentencing guidelines who received no prison time was Joshua Hartfield, 32, a former Richland police officer who works at the sheriff’s department along with other officers. He wasn’t even a member of the Goon Squad. . ” He was the last of six former police officers to be sentenced over three days this week, months after they all pleaded guilty.
Before sentencing Hartfield to 10 years in prison, Lee said Thursday that Hartfield had no history of using excessive force and that he was involved in a brutal incident by one of his former deputies, Christian Dedmon. Stated. But Lee said Hartfield failed to intervene in the violence and participated in a cover-up.
Lee on Wednesday sentenced Dedmon, 29, to 40 years in prison and Daniel Opdyke, 28, to 17 and a half years. On Tuesday, he sentenced Hunter Elward, 31, to nearly 20 years and Jeffrey Middleton, 46, to 17 1/2 years.
Federal prosecutor Christopher Perras argued for a long sentence, saying that while McAlpin was not technically a member of the rogue team, he “shaped the men into villains.”
Parker told investigators that McAlpin functioned like a “Mafia don,” giving instructions to officers throughout the night. Prosecutors said other deputies often tried to impress McAlpin, and Opdyke’s attorney said Wednesday that his client considered McAlpin a father figure.
Peras said Thursday that the young deputies tried to understand how they “wanted to be good law enforcement officers and ended up being monsters.”
“How did these senators learn to treat other human beings this way? Your Excellency, the answer is right there,” Mr. Perras said, pointing at McAlpin.
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 officers fabricated false charges against the victims, planted guns and drugs at the crime scene, and stuck to the cover story for months before finally admitting to torturing Jenkins and Parker. Elward admitted to putting the gun in Jenkins’ mouth and firing the gun, but federal prosecutors said he intended it to be a “mock execution.”
The attacks began on January 24, 2023, when a white man complained to Mr. McAlpin that two black men were staying at Braxton’s home with a white woman, a racist calling for extrajudicial violence. The call was the starting point. Mr. McAlpin told Mr. Dedmon that he texted a group of white senators asking if they could “join the mission.”
“No bad mugshots allowed,” Dedmon texted. Prosecutors say it’s a green light to use excessive force on body parts that aren’t visible in the booking photo.
Dedmon also brought in Hartfield, who was instructed to cover the back door in case of a break-in.
Once inside, the officers taunted the victim with racial slurs and shocked him with a stun gun. They handcuffed them and poured milk, alcohol and chocolate syrup on their faces. Dedmon and Opdyke assaulted them with sex toys. They forced them to get naked and take a shower together to hide the mess.
After Elward shot Jenkins in the mouth, splitting his tongue and breaking his jaw, they devised a cover-up. Deputies agreed to plant the drugs, and Jenkins and Parker were falsely accused for months.
Prosecutors said McAlpin and Middleton, the oldest members of the group, threatened to kill other officers if they spoke out. In court Thursday, McAlpin’s lawyer Ahram Sellers said Middleton was the only one who threatened to kill them.
The sellers also questioned the probation officer about the details given to the judge. Sellers said federal agents interviewed the neighbor who called McAlpin, who reported seeing “a bunch of trash” people, both white and black, at the home. That, he argued, raised questions about whether the episode started on the basis of race.
Federal prosecutors said neighbors referred to the people in the house as “those people” and “thugs.” Information contained in the charging documents was not disputed by the officers when they pleaded guilty, but it was clear that some officers used racial taunts and epithets throughout the episode. Became.
Rankin County, a predominantly white county just east of Jackson, has one of the highest percentages of black residents of any major U.S. city. 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.
Lawyers for several of the deputies said their clients were caught up in a culture of corruption encouraged by leaders of the sheriff’s office.
Rankin County Sheriff Brian Bailey did not provide details about the actions of the deputies when he announced last June that he had fired them. After pleading guilty in August, Mr. Bailey said the officers committed misconduct and promised to make changes. Mr. Jenkins and Mr. Parker have called for their resignations and filed a $400 million civil lawsuit against the department.
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Bailey, who was re-elected unopposed in November, said in a statement Thursday that he is “committed to the betterment of this county” and that he is “committed to the honest, hard-working men and women who currently serve in this department” and to the growing ranks of Rankin County. We will cooperate.” It’s safer.
In a statement read by his lawyer Thursday, Jenkins said he “felt like a slave” and was “left to die like a dog.”
“If the people in charge of the Rankin County Sheriff’s Office can participate in this type of torture, then God help us all,” Jenkins said. “And God help Rankin County.”
