Two former officers convicted of torturing and sexually abusing black men receive sentences of 27 and 10 years in prison

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) – A federal judge on Thursday accomplished sentencing to prison terms of about 10 to 40 years six white former Mississippi law enforcement officers who pleaded guilty to breaking right into a home with no warrant and torturing two black men in an hour-long attack that included beatings, multiple uses of Tasers and assaults with a sex toy before one of the victims was shot in the mouth.

U.S. District Judge Tom Lee called the perpetrators’ actions “outrageous and despicable” and handed down sentences near the utmost federal guidelines for five of the six men who attacked Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker.

The exception was Joshua Hartfield, 32, a former police officer who didn’t work with others in the sheriff’s department and was not a member of the “Thug Squad.” He was the last of six former officers sentenced over three days this week, months after all of them pleaded guilty.

Before handing Hartfield a 10-year prison sentence Thursday, Lee said Hartfield had no history of using excessive force and was drawn into this violent episode by one of his former deputies, Christian Dedmon, who received a 40-year sentence. Lee, nonetheless, said Hartfield didn’t intervene in the violence and participated in a cover-up.

Brett McAlpin, 53, the fourth-highest rating officer with the Rankin County Sheriff’s Office, received a sentence of about 27 years in prison Thursday. McAlpin nodded to his family in the courtroom and apologized before the judge sentenced him.

“It was all bad, very bad. This is not how people should treat each other, much less how law enforcement should treat people,” said McAlpin, who didn’t take a look at the victims as he spoke. “I’m truly sorry that I was involved in something that made law enforcement look so bad.”

Lee sentenced Christian Dedmon, 29, to 40 years in prison and Daniel Opdyke, 28, to 17.5 years in prison Wednesday. He gave about 20 years to Hunter Elward (31) and 17.5 years to Jeffrey Middleton (46). (*10*)Tuesday. All but Hartfield served in the Rankin County Sheriff’s Office near Jackson, the Mississippi state capital.

In looking for a lengthy sentence, federal prosecutor Christopher Perras said McAlpin wasn’t technically a member of the Goon Squad, but “he molded them into the thugs they became.”

Parker told investigators that McAlpin acted like a “mafia don” as he gave instructions to officers throughout the evening. Prosecutors said other deputies often tried to impress McAlpin, and Opdyke’s attorney said Wednesday that his client viewed McAlpin as a father figure.

The younger deputies tried to recollect how they started off “wanting to be good law enforcement officers and turned into monsters,” Perras said Thursday.

“How did these deputies learn to treat one other human being like this? “Your honor, the answer is right there,” Perras said, turning and pointing at McAlpin.

In March 2023, several months before federal prosecutors announced charges in August, an investigation by the Associated Press linked some deputies to no less than 4 violent encounters with black men since 2019, which left two people dead and one with lasting injuries.

The officers made up false accusations against the victims, planted weapons and drugs on the crime scene, and stuck to their cover for months before finally admitting their guilt. that they tortured Jenkins and Parker. Elward admitted to putting a gun in Jenkins’ mouth and firing a shot in what federal prosecutors said was a “mock execution.”

Featured Stories

In an announcement read Thursday by his lawyer, Jenkins said he “felt like a slave” and was “left to die like a dog.”

“If those in charge of the Rankin County Sheriff’s Office can participate in this type of torture, God help us all. And God help Rankin County,” Jenkins said.

The terror began on January 24, 2023, with a racist incitement to extrajudicial violence, when a white person complained to McAlpin that two black men were staying with a white woman in a house in Braxton. McAlpin told Dedmon texted a bunch of white deputies asking in the event that they were “available to participate in the mission.”

“No bad mug shots,” Dedmon wrote, which prosecutors say gives a green light to make use of excessive force on body parts that do not appear in the booking photo.

Dedmon also brought in Hartfield, who was instructed to cover the back door of the property in the course of the illegal entry.

Once inside, the officers mocked the victims with racist insults and shocked them with stun guns. They handcuffed them and poured milk, alcohol and chocolate syrup on their faces. Dedmon and Opdyke attacked them with a sex toy. They forced them to strip naked and take a shower together to cover the mess.

After Elward shot Jenkins in the mouth, splitting his tongue and breaking his jaw, they hatched a canopy. Deputies agreed to plant the drugs, and Jenkins and Parker faced false charges for months.

According to prosecutors, McAlpin and Middleton, the oldest men in the group, threatened to kill the opposite officers in the event that they spoke out. In court Thursday, McAlpin’s attorney, Aafram Sellers, said only Middleton threatened to kill the opposite officers.

Sellers also questioned probation officer Allie Whitten on the stand about the small print presented to the judge. When federal investigators questioned the neighbor who called McAlpin, the person testified that he saw “trashy” people in the home, each white and black, Sellers said. This calls into query whether the episode began because of race, he argued.

Federal prosecutors said a neighbor referred to the house’s occupants as “those people” and “thugs.” The information contained in the indictments, which the officers didn’t dispute when pleading guilty, shows that some of them used racist taunts and epithets throughout the episode.

Predominantly white Rankin County lies east of Jackson and is home to at least one of the very best percentages of black residents of any major U.S. city. The officers yelled at Jenkins and Parker to “stay out of Rankin County and go back to Jackson or ‘their side’ of the Pearl River,” the court document said.

Attorneys for several sheriff’s deputies said their clients were caught up in a culture of corruption that was not only allowed but encouraged by sheriff’s office leaders.

Rankin County Sheriff Bryan Bailey, who took office in 2012, released no details about his deputies’ actions when announcing they were fired last June. After they he pleaded guilty in August, Bailey said officers had gone rogue and promised changes. Jenkins and Parker called on him to resign and contributed $400 million civil lawsuit against the school. Last November, Bailey was re-elected unopposed for one more four-year term.