Ex-US officers sentenced for torturing
Six white former Mississippi law enforcement officers who had tortured and abused two black men in a racist attack were sentenced on Wednesday to 15 to 45 years in prison on state charges.
The officers — former Rankin County Sheriff ’s deputies Brett Morris McAlpin, 53; Christian Dedmon, 29; Jeffrey Middleton, 46; Hunter Elward, 31; and Daniel Opdyke, 28, and a former police officer from the city of Richland, Joshua Hartfield, 32 — had pleaded guilty to state charges in August.
They had also pleaded guilty to federal charges in connection with the assault and were sentenced to federal prison terms of 10 to 40 years.
McAlpin, Middleton and Opdyke were sentenced to serve 20 years, Dedmon to 25 years, Elward to 45 years, and Hartfield to 15 years in federal penitentiaries.
The sentences will be served concurrently with their federal sentences, and all were ordered to pay $6,431 within two years of release, and permanently surrender their law enforcement certificates.
In a statement, Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch said the former officers’ crimes did grave harm to the victims and violated the trust of citizens they were supposed to protect.
“These criminal acts make a difficult job even harder and far more dangerous,” Fitch said. “And it is left to us all to commit ourselves to repairing that damage.”
Prosecutors said the former officers had nicknamed themselves the “Goon Squad” because of their willingness to use excessive force and cover up their brutal attack on Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker in January last year.
In the attack, the men verbally abused Jenkins and Parker, beat them, assaulted them with stun guns and a sex toy, and one of them shot Jenkins in the mouth in a “mock execution”.
In Wednesday’s sentencing, attorneys read statements for the victims.
“After Hunter Elward shot me, they left me to die bleeding on the floor and they tried to set me up to be imprisoned,” a statement on behalf of Jenkins said.
“I can no longer do what I love to do and that’s sing. I play the drums for my church. And because I was shot in the face, it affected my vision so I can no longer play.”
A statement on behalf of Parker said the actions of that night of terror “has left a scar on me that will last forever”. “I never knew the ones that were sworn to protect and serve would be the ones I need protection from,” it said.