Racist police ‘goon squad’ jailed over mock executions and torture

A RACIST US police “goon squad” that carried out a mock execution during a 90-minute torture session of two black men has been sentenced to decades in prison.

Six former officers admitted raiding a Mississippi home without a warrant and assaulting Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker in a case which drew national attention.

The group of officers, all white, used racial slurs as they assaulted their victims with a stun gun and a sex toy and subjected them to a mock execution.

Merrick Garland, the US attorney general, called it a “heinous attack” on those they had sworn to protect.

Christian Dedmon, 29, the lead assailant, was imprisoned for 40 years on Wednesday, a sentence the victims’ relatives called “unheard of ” in the state.

Dedmon wept during the proceedings, averting his eyes from Mr Jenkins and Mr Parker as he said he would never forgive himself. Two other former officers – Daniel Opdyke, 28, and Jeffrey Middleton, 46 – were sentenced to 17 and a half years each. Hunter Elward, 31, was sentenced to nearly 20 years.

Opdyke also wept as he told Mr Jenkins and Mr Parker that he had reflected on “the monster I became that night”.

The final two members of the self-styled “goon squad”, Brett Mcalpin, 53, and Joshua Hartfield, 32, were sentenced on yesterday to more than 27 years and more than 10 years respectively.

Mcalpin had texted the group asking if they were “available for a mission” in January 2023, after a white neighbour reported that two men were staying at a white woman’s home in Braxton.

Once inside, they handcuffed the men and poured milk, alcohol and chocolate syrup on their faces. Dedmon and Opdyke assaulted them with a sex toy.

They forced them to strip naked and shower together to conceal the mess.

Elward carried out a mock execution, which went awry when the gun he forced into Mr Jenkins’s mouth went off and broke his jaw.

To cover their tracks, the officers planted drugs and a gun, framing their victims on false charges. They stuck to their cover story for months, until finally pleading guilty last summer. They were all fired as sheriff ’s deputies.

In addition to the federal civil rights offences, they still face sentencing on further state charges.

The group has been linked to numerous other violent encounters against black men, some deadly, as well as a serious assault on a white man in December 2022.