Former officers who tortured Michael Corey Jenkins, Eddie Parker with stun guns and sex toys received prison sentences

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) – Six former Mississippi law enforcement officers who pleaded guilty to a protracted list of state and federal charges for torturing two Black men can be sentenced by a federal judge starting Tuesday.

U.S. District Judge Tom Lee will sentence two defendants every day on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday after delaying proceedings twice. Each faces the potential of a long time behind bars.

The former law officers pleaded guilty in August to subjecting Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker to multiple acts of brutal, racially motivated torture. In a January 2023 episode, a bunch of six people broke right into a Rankin County home with no warrant and attacked Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Parker with stun guns, a sex toy and other items.

The terror began on January 24, 2023, with racist incitement to extrajudicial violence.

A white person called Rankin County Deputy Brett McAlpin and complained that two black men were with a white woman at a house in Braxton, Mississippi. McAlpin told Deputy Christian Dedmon texted a bunch of white deputies who were so willing to make use of excessive force that they called themselves “The Goon Squad.”

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

After a mock execution went mistaken when Jenkins was shot within the mouth, they devised a cover-up that included planting drugs and weapons. For months, false allegations were made against Jenkins and Parker.

Before the decision was announced, Jenkins and Parker called for the “harshest of sentences” at a press conference on Monday.

“It was very difficult for me and for us,” Jenkins said. “We hope for the best and prepare for the worst.”

Jenkins suffered a lacerated tongue and a broken jaw. He still has problems speaking and eating.

Malik Shabazz, a lawyer representing each men, said the end result of the sentencing hearings could have national ramifications.

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“Michael Jenkins and Eddie Parker continue to suffer emotionally and physically from this horrific and bloody attack by Rankin County officers,” Shabazz said. “A message needs to be sent to police in Mississippi and across America, this level of criminal conduct will be met with the harshest consequences.”

In the months before prosecutors announced charges in August 2023, an Associated Press investigation linked some deputies to at the very least 4 violent encounters with black men since 2019, leaving two dead and one suffering lasting injuries.

The charged officers are McAlpin, Dedmon, Hunter Elward, Jeffrey Middleton and Daniel Opdyke of the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department, and Joshua Hartfield, a Richland police officer. They pleaded guilty to charges including conspiracy to persecute, obstruction of justice, deprivation of rights under law, discharging a firearm in furtherance of against the law of violence and conspiracy to obstruct justice.

Most of their attorneys didn’t immediately reply to emails in search of comment Monday. Jason Kirschberg, representing Opdyke, said: “Daniel accepted responsibility for his actions and omissions. (…) He admitted he was wrong and feels deep remorse for the pain he caused the victims.”

Under the federal charges, Dedmon and Elward face a maximum sentence of 120 years plus life in prison and $2.75 million in fines. Hartfield faces 80 years and $1.5 million, McAlpin faces 90 years and $1.75 million, Middleton faces 80 years and $1.5 million, and Opdyke could possibly be sentenced to 100 years with a $2 million wonderful.

The former officers agreed to prosecutors’ really helpful sentences of 5 to 30 years in state court, however the time served on separate state convictions will run concurrently with potentially longer federal sentences.

Majority-white Rankin County lies east of the state capital, Jackson, and is home to one among the very 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.

Federal prosecutors saw echoes of Mississippi’s dark history within the gruesome crimes committed by those charged with enforcing the law, including the 1964 killings of three civil rights activists after a deputy turned them over to the Ku Klux Klan.

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 alter the department. Jenkins and Parker called for his resignation and filed a $400 million civil lawsuit against the department.