Six former officers get 10 to 40 years in torture case
Federal judge cites ‘despicable’ crimes against two Black men in Mississippi.
Miss. — A federal judge Thursday finished handing down prison terms of about 10 to 40 years each to six white former Mississippi law enforcement officers who pleaded guilty to breaking into a home without a warrant and torturing two Black men in an hours-long attack that included beatings, repeated uses of stun guns and assaults with a sex toy before one victim was shot in the mouth.
U.S. District Judge Tom Lee called the former officers’ actions “egregious and despicable” and gave sentences near the top of federal guidelines to five of the six men who attacked Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker in January 2023.
The case drew condemnation from law enforcement officials, including U.S. Atty. Gen. Merrick Garland.
“The depravity of the crimes committed by these defendants cannot be overstated,” Garland said Thursday.
In the case’s grisly details, local residents saw echoes of Mississippi’s history of racist atrocities by people in authority. The difference this time is that those who abused their power paid a steep price for their crimes, the victims’ attorneys said.
Brett McAlpin, 53, who was the fourth-highestranking officer in the Rankin County Sheriff’s Office, received a sentence of about 27 years on Thursday. McAlpin offered an apology before he was sentenced but did not look at the victims as he spoke.
“This was all wrong, very wrong. It’s not how people should treat each other, and even more so, it’s not how law enforcement should treat people,” McAlpin said. “I’m really sorry for being a part of something that made law enforcement look so bad.”
The only defendant who did not receive a prison term at the top of the sentencing guidelines was Joshua Hartfield, 32, a former Richland police officer who did not work in the sheriff ’s departJACKSON, ment with the others and was not a member of their “Goon Squad.” He was the last of the six former officers sentenced over three days this week, months after they all pleaded guilty.
Before giving Hartfield a 10-year sentence Thursday, Lee said the former policeman did not have a history of using excessive force and was roped into the brutal episode by one of the former deputies, Christian Dedmon. Lee said, however, that Hartfield failed to intervene in the violence and participated in a cover-up.
Lee on Wednesday sentenced Dedmon, 29, to 40 years in prison and Daniel Opdyke, 28, to 17½ years. On Tuesday, Lee gave Hunter Elward, 31, about 20 years, and Jeffrey Middleton, 46, 17½ years.
Arguing for a lengthy sentence, federal prosecutor Christopher Perras said McAlpin was not technically a member of the Goon Squad but “molded the men into the goons they became.”
Parker told investigators that McAlpin functioned like a “mafia don” as he instructed the deputies throughout the attack. Prosecutors said the others tried to impress McAlpin; Opdyke’s attorney said Wednesday that his client saw McAlpin as a father figure.
The younger deputies had tried to understand how they started off “wanting to be good law enforcement officers and turned into monsters,” the prosecutor said Thursday.
“How did these deputies learn to treat another human being this way? Your honor, the answer is sitting right there,” Perras said as he turned and pointed at McAlpin.
In March 2023, months before federal prosecutors announced charges, an investigation by the Associated Press linked some of the deputies to at least four violent encounters with Black men since 2019 that left two dead and one with lasting injuries.
The deputies invented false charges against Parker and Jenkins, planting a gun and drugs at the scene of their crime, and stuck to their cover story for months until finally admitting that they had tortured the two men. Elward admitted to shoving a gun into Jenkins’ mouth and firing it in what was meant to be a “mock execution,” federal prosecutors said.
In a statement read Thursday by his attorney, Jenkins said he “felt like a slave” and was “left to die like a dog.”
“If those who are in charge of the Rankin County Sheriff’s Office can participate in these kinds of torture, God help us all. And God help Rankin County,” Jenkins said.
The terror began Jan. 24, 2023, with a racist call for extrajudicial violence when a white person complained to McAlpin that two Black men were staying with a white woman at a house in Braxton, Miss.
McAlpin told Dedmon, who texted a group of white deputies asking if they were “available for a mission.”
“No bad mugshots,” Dedmon texted — a green light, according to prosecutors, to use excessive force on parts of the body that wouldn’t appear in a booking photo.
Dedmon also brought Hartfield, who was instructed to cover the back door of the property during their illegal entry.
Once inside, the deputies mocked Jenkins and Parker with racial slurs and shocked them with stun guns. They handcuffed them and poured milk, alcohol and chocolate syrup over their faces. Dedmon and Opdyke assaulted them with a sex toy. The deputies forced Jenkins and Parker to strip and shower together to conceal the mess.
After Elward shot Jenkins in the mouth, lacerating his tongue and breaking his jaw, the deputies devised a cover-up, agreeing to plant drugs. False charges stood against Jenkins and Parker for months.
McAlpin and Middleton, the oldest of the group, threatened to kill the others if they spoke up, prosecutors said. In court Thursday, McAlpin’s attorney Aafram Sellers said only Middleton threatened to kill the other officers.
Rankin County Sheriff Bryan Bailey, who took office in 2012, revealed no details about his deputies’ actions when he announced in June they had been fired. After they pleaded guilty in August, Bailey said the deputies had gone rogue, and he promised changes.
Jenkins and Parker called for Bailey’s resignation and filed a $400-million civil lawsuit against the department.
In November, Bailey was reelected without opposition to another four-year term.