google-site-verification=cXrcMGa94PjI5BEhkIFIyc9eZiIwZzNJc4mTXSXtGRM Two more Mississippi lawmakers are scheduled to be sentenced today for torturing and sexually abusing black men - 360WISE MEDIA
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Two more Mississippi lawmakers are scheduled to be sentenced today for torturing and sexually abusing black men

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JACKSON, Miss. (AP) – The execution continues Wednesday within the case of a white former law enforcement officer in Mississippi who pleaded guilty last 12 months to breaking right into a home with no warrant and torturing two black men with a stun gun, a sex toy and other objects.

Daniel Opdyke, 28, and Christian Dedmon, 29, will appear individually before U.S. District Judge Tom Lee. They face long prison sentences.

On Tuesday, Lee sentenced 31-year-old Hunter Elward and 46-year-old Jeffrey Middleton to nearly 20 years in prison. Like Opdyke and Dedmon, they were working as Rankin County sheriff’s deputies on the time of the attack.

Another former police deputy, Brett McAlpin, 53, and former Richland police officer Joshua Hartfield, 32, will go on trial Thursday.

This photo combination shows (from top left) former Rankin County Sheriff’s deputies Hunter Elward, Christian Dedmon, Brett McAlpin, Jeffrey Middleton and Daniel Opdyke and former Richland Police Officer Joshua Hartfield in August 2023 appearing in Rankin County District Court in Brandon, Mississippi. (Photo / s: Rogelio V. Solis/AP, file)

Former officers admitted several months ago that they tortured Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker. Elward admitted to putting a gun in Jenkins’ mouth and firing a shot as a part of a “mock execution” that went unsuitable.

In a press release Tuesday, Attorney General Merrick Garland condemned the “heinous attack on the citizens they were sworn to protect.”

Before Lee sentenced Elward and Middleton, he called their actions “outrageous and despicable.”

The terror began on January 24, 2023, with a racist incitement to extrajudicial violence, when a white Rankin County resident complained to McAlpin that two black men were staying with a white woman in a house in Braxton. McAlpin told Dedmon, who texted a bunch of white deputies who were so willing to use excessive force that they called themselves “The Goon Squad.”

Once inside, they handcuffed Jenkins and his friend Parker and poured milk, alcohol and chocolate syrup of their faces. They forced them to strip naked and take a shower together to hide the mess. They taunted the victims with racist insults and shocked them with stun guns. Dedmon attacked them with a sex toy.

After Elward shot Jenkins within the mouth, they hatched a cover-up that included planting drugs and a gun. For months, false allegations were made against Jenkins and Parker. Jenkins suffered a lacerated tongue and a broken jaw.

Majority-white Rankin County lies east of the state capital, Jackson, and is home to one in all the best percentages of black residents of any major U.S. city.

Officers warned Jenkins and Parker to “stay out of Rankin County and return to Jackson or ‘their side’ of the Pearl River,” court documents say, referring to an area with the next concentration of black residents.

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Dedmon can be scheduled to be sentenced for his leading role within the assault on a white man that occurred before Jenkins and Parker were tortured. On Tuesday, prosecutors identified the victim for the primary time as Alan Schmidt and reviewed his statement, which detailed what happened to him on December 4, 2022.

Schmidt said that in a traffic stop that night, Rankin County deputies charged him with possession of stolen property. They handcuffed him, dragged him out of the vehicle and beat him until he “started seeing spots.” The statement said Dedmon fired a gun into the air and forced Schmidt to his knees.

Dedmon put a gun to Schmidt’s temple and tried to put his genitals in the person’s mouth as Elward watched, and Dedmon grabbed Schmidt’s genitals through the ordeal as the person screamed, Schmidt said. The attack didn’t stop until officers took Schmidt to jail.

“What form of sick person does that? He already has a lot power over us that if he behaves like this, he must really have a extremely sick mind,” Schmidt wrote in his statement.

Last March, months before federal prosecutors announced charges in August, an Associated Press investigation linked some deputies to at the least 4 violent encounters with Black men since 2019 that left two people dead and one with everlasting injuries. damage.

Elward and Middlelton apologized in court with emotion. Elward’s attorney, Joe Hollomon, said his client first witnessed Rankin County deputies turning a blind eye to misconduct in 2017.

“Hunter (Elward) was privy to the culture of corruption within the Rankin County Sheriff’s Office,” Hollomon said.

For months, Rankin County Sheriff Bryan Bailey, whose deputies committed the crimes, said little concerning the incident. After the officers pleaded guilty in August, Bailey said the officers had acted unfairly and promised to change the department. Jenkins and Parker called for his resignation and filed a $400 million civil lawsuit against the department.


This article was originally published on : thegrio.com
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Body camera footage shows police leaving an Ohio man handcuffed and face down on the floor of a bar before he died

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TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) – An Ohio man who was handcuffed and left face down on the floor of a social club last week has died in police custody and the officers involved have been placed on paid administrative leave.

Police body camera footage released Wednesday shows a Canton police officer responding to a report of a crash and finding Frank Tyson, 53, of East Canton, at the bar of a nearby American Veterans (AMVETS) facility.

As a result of the accident that took place around 8 p.m. on April 18, a power pole broke down. Footage from Officer Beau Schoenegge’s body camera shows that after a passing driver directed police to the bar, a woman answered the door and said, “Please get him out of here right now.”

Police grabbed Tyson and he resisted being handcuffed and repeatedly said, “They’re trying to kill me” and “Call the sheriff,” before putting him on the floor.

They immobilized him – including a knee on his back – and he immediately told officers he couldn’t breathe. A recent Associated Press investigation found that these words – “I can’t breathe” – have been disregarded in other cases of deaths in police custody.

Officers told Tyson he was OK to calm down and stop fighting because he was lying face down, cross-legged, on the carpeted floor. Police joked with passersby and went through Tyson’s wallet before realizing he was having a medical crisis.

Five minutes after body camera footage of Tyson saying “I can’t breathe,” one officer asked one other if Tyson had calmed down. The other replied: “He may be absent.”

Tyson telling officers he couldn’t breathe recalled the events leading as much as George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police in 2020. According to the coroner’s office, Tyson was black. According to the police department, each Canton Police Department traffic bureau officers who were placed on leave, Schoenegge and Camden Burch, are white.

Tyson didn’t move when the officer told him to stand up and tried to knock him down. They shook him and checked his pulse.

Minutes later, the officer said doctors needed to “step up” because Tyson was unresponsive and the officer wasn’t sure if he could feel a pulse. The officers began resuscitation.

A Canton police report on Tyson’s death released Friday said that “shortly after securing him,” officers “determined that Tyson was unresponsive” and that cardiopulmonary resuscitation was performed. Narcan doses were also administered before the doctors arrived. Less than an hour later, Tyson was pronounced dead at the hospital.

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Chief investigator Harry Campbell of the Stark County Coroner’s Office said Thursday that an autopsy was performed earlier this week and Tyson’s stays were taken to the funeral home.

His niece, Jasmine Tyson, called the video “nonsense” in an interview with WEWS-TV in Cleveland. “It seemed like forever when they finally checked on him,” Jasmine Tyson said.

According to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections, Frank Tyson was released from state prison on April 6 after serving 24 years for kidnapping and theft and was almost immediately deemed in violation of post-release supervision for failing to report back to his parole officer. .

A Tyson member of the family reached by phone Thursday declined to right away comment.

The Ohio Attorney General’s Office of Criminal Investigation said in a statement Thursday that its investigation is not going to determine whether the use of force was justified and that a prosecutor or grand jury will resolve whether use-of-force charges are warranted.

Canton Mayor William V. Sherer II said he personally expressed his condolences to Frank Tyson’s family.

“As we navigate through this difficult time, my goal is to be as transparent as possible with the community,” Sherer said in a statement released Wednesday.

The U.S. Department of Justice has warned police officers since the mid-Nineties to perform belly rolls on suspects immediately after being handcuffed because of the risk of positional asphyxiation.

Many police experts agree that somebody can stop respiratory in the event that they are restrained on their chest for too long or with an excessive amount of weight, as this may cause pressure on the lungs and strain on the heart. But if done appropriately, placing someone on their stomach is just not life-threatening.

An Associated Press investigation published in March found that greater than 1,000 people died in the decade after police restrained them with nonlethal measures, including prone restraints.


This article was originally published on : thegrio.com
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The sister of George Robinson, who died after police pulled him from his automotive, rejects a $17,000 settlement offer. dollars

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JACKSON, Miss. (AP) – A lady who sued Mississippi’s capital over her brother’s death has decided to reject the settlement after officials publicly disclosed how much town would pay survivors, her lawyer said Wednesday.

George Robinson, 62, died in January 2019, days after three Jackson police officers pulled him from his automotive while trying to find a murder suspect.

The Jackson City Council on Tuesday approved a $17,786 payment to settle a lawsuit filed by Robinson’s relatives in state court in October 2019, WLBT-TV reported. City documents show the settlement didn’t constitute an admission of liability by town or the three officers named within the lawsuit. Robinson was black, as were the three officers.

The payment to relatives – including Robinson’s sister, Bettersten Wade – was approved unanimously. Wade’s attorney, Dennis Sweet III, released a letter Wednesday saying town of Jackson violated a confidentiality agreement that was part of the settlement. Sweet said that because of the general public disclosure of information and since town “appears to claim a victory or infer some purported victory,” Wade intends to proceed suing town.

Sweet said Robinson’s family has reached a separate “significant settlement” with the ambulance company.

Councilor Kenneth Stokes said he thought the urban settlement was too small, although he voted for it.

“I say it just sends the wrong message about human lives, especially Black lives,” Stokes said. “I think a step in the right direction would be to pay the family a little more.”

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The lawsuit alleged that the three officers “brutally, viciously and mercilessly beat Mr. Robinson by punching and kicking him.”

“Mr. Robinson committed no crime, was not subject to any court order, and posed no threat to himself or anyone in the area,” the lawsuit stated.

Wade said Robinson had been hospitalized with a stroke a few days before the encounter with police and was taking medication. A couple of hours after the beating, he had a seizure, and two days later he died of bleeding within the brain.

The case was dropped with second-degree murder charges against two officers. In August 2022, a Hinds County jury convicted former Detective Anthony Fox of culpable homicide by negligence, after which in January of this yr, the Mississippi Court of Appeals overturned Fox’s conviction. The appeals court majority wrote that prosecutors didn’t prove that Fox “acted in a grossly negligent manner” or that Robinson’s death “was foreseeable under the circumstances.”

Wade is the mother of Dexter Wade, who was hit by an off-duty Jackson police officer in March 2023.

Dexter Wade was buried within the Hinds County Paupers Cemetery. However, it was not until October that his mother learned in regards to the burial.

His body was exhumed on November 13 and an independent autopsy was performed. The wallet present in his jeans pocket contained a state ID with a home address, a bank card and a medical health insurance card, said civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who represents Wade’s family.

On November 20, Dexter Wade’s family organized his funeral, and he was buried in a different cemetery.


This article was originally published on : thegrio.com
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What do we know about the fatal shooting of Loletha Hall during an Uber concert

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It was an atypical scam that ended with an unusual result – tragically in a driveway in Ohio.

This week, authorities said William J. Brock fatally shot an Uber driver because he wrongly assumed she was participating in a scheme to acquire $12,000 in alleged bail for a relative. Loletha Hall was a victim of the same scam, summoned by the scammers to Brock’s home to select up a supposed package for delivery.

Brock later told investigators he believed Hall got here to get the money the scammers wanted.

Now he faces murder charges, to which he has pleaded not guilty. Hall’s family is in mourning. Uber helps investigators catch the person behind the fraud attempt.

Experts say the gimmick is widely generally known as a scam or grandparent scam that takes advantage of older people’s love for family. Callers pretend to be anyone from grandchildren to the police, and tell victims that something terrible has happened and that their younger relative needs money.

In this photo from Uber dash cam video, William Brock (right) holds a gun for Uber driver Loletha Hall outside his home in South Charleston, Ohio, on March 25, 2024. (Photo: Clark County Sheriff’s Office via AP)

Here’s what we know about the shooting and the investigation thus far:

What exactly happened?

Brock, 81, received the scam calls on the morning of March 25 at his home in South Charleston, a city of about 1,800 people situated between Dayton and Columbus. According to a press release from the Clark County Sheriff’s Office, the calls were about an imprisoned relative and “continued to make threats and demands for money.”

The sheriff’s office said that while Brock was on the phone, Hall received a request through the Uber app to select up a package from Brock’s home for delivery. Hall, 61, of Columbus, was unaware of the attempted fraud.

“After contacting Ms. Hall, Mr. Brock produced a gun and held it at gunpoint, demanding the identity of the people he spoke to on the phone,” the sheriff’s office said.

The sheriff’s office said Hall was unarmed and never threatened or made any demands on Brock.

The sheriff’s office said Brock took Hall’s cellular phone and would not let her leave. When she tried to get back to the automotive, Brock shot her. In the ensuing fights, he shot her a second and third time.

Brock then called 911 to report that he had shot an individual on his property who was attempting to rob him.

The police body camera footage shows him briefly discussing what he believes happened.

“I’m really happy to see you guys here because I was on the phone for a few hours with this guy who was trying to tell me that I have a nephew in jail and I was in an accident in Charleston but I was just hanging on and they need the bond money,” he said Brock. “And this woman was going to get it.”

The video shows investigators discussing the $12,000 while sitting on a table in Brock’s home.

The video also shows a Clark County Sheriff’s Office detective at Brock’s home talking on the phone to a person who had previously spoken to Brock. He identified himself as an officer and told the detective, “You’re going to get in trouble.”

When the detective introduced herself as an actual police officer, the phone hung up. During a subsequent phone call with the man, the detective told him that the Uber driver had been in a serious accident, was in the hospital and “wasn’t feeling well.”

The man told the detective he could be there in 20 minutes. He was not.

On Monday, Brock was charged with murder, assault and kidnapping. He posted $200,000 bail and was released from the Clark County Jail on Wednesday. His lawyer, Paul Kavanagh, didn’t immediately return an email searching for comment Friday.

How common are these types of grandparent scams?

Grandparent scams have grow to be increasingly common over the past 10 to fifteen years — partly because of the great amount of personal information available about people online, said Anthony Pratkanis, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Criminals search social media for details about relatives and use them to persuade victims their loved one is in trouble, said Pratkanis, whose research includes fraud crimes.

“Basically, the criminal is taking advantage of our human nature,” he said. “You are in a state of panic and high emotional arousal. This is an appeal to fear. And the best way to get rid of that fear is to give the criminal that money.”

Pratkanis said fraudsters typically prefer financial transactions that do not require physical proximity, reminiscent of bank transfers, gift cards or cryptocurrencies. This case is unusual because the fraudsters used Hall as an unsuspecting money mule.

“Most people involved in fraud today don’t actually have any contact with the criminal – there’s a distance,” Pratkanis said. “But if that’s not the case, there’s a chance that the victim’s anger will cause the victim to take action.”

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Uber said Wednesday it was helping investigators look into the account that sent Hall to Brock’s home. The shipping company called Hall’s death a “terrible tragedy.”

“A Bond Like No Other”

Some posthumous Hall described her as the mother of a son and stepson, a loyal member of her church and a talented cook known for her delicious pound cakes.

She retired from the Ohio Regional Income Tax Agency and worked in behavioral health at school and for Uber. She studied horticulture at Ohio State and commenced a cleansing business.

At the memorial service which was broadcast online, her son Mario Hall talked about how close they were regardless that they lived in several states, and infrequently talked on the phone several times a day. He said they’d “a bond like no other.”

“Thank you for all your sacrifices and everything you have instilled in me,” he said. “You are the best mother anyone could wish for. And I promise that I’ll proceed to make you proud.


This article was originally published on : thegrio.com
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