Sentencing continues for lawmen who tortured 2 Black men
JACKSON, Miss. — A federal judge on Thursday finished handing down prison terms of about 10 to 40 years 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 hourslong attack that included beatings, repeated uses of stun guns and assaults with a sex toy before one of the victims was shot in the mouth.
U.S. District Judge Tom Lee called the culprits’ 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 top law enforcement officials in the country, including Attorney General Merrick Garland. In its 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 highest-ranking officer in the Rankin County Sheriff’s Office, received a sentence of about 27 years on Thursday. McAlpin nodded to his family in the courtroom. He 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 didn’t 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 a sheriff’s department with the others and was not a member of a “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 Hartfield 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 sentenced Dedmon, 29, to 40 years and Daniel Opdyke, 28, to 17.5 years on Wednesday. He gave about 20 years to Hunter Elward, 31, and 17.5 years to Jeffrey Middleton, 46, on Tuesday.
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 officers throughout the evening. Prosecutors said other deputies often tried to impress McAlpin, and Opdyke’s attorney said Wednesday that his client saw McAlpin as a father figure.
The younger deputies tried to wrap their heads around how they had started off “wanting to be good law enforcement officers and turned into monsters,” Perras said Thursday.
“How did these deputies learn to treat another human being this way? Your honor, the answer is sitting right there,” Perras said, pointing at McAlpin.
In March 2023, months before federal prosecutors announced charges in August, 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 another with lasting injuries.
The officers invented false charges against the victims, planting a gun and drugs at the scene of their crime, and stuck to their cover story for months until finally admitting that they tortured Jenkins and Parker. Elward admitted to shoving a gun into Jenkins’ mouth and firing it in what federal prosecutors said was meant to be a “mock execution.”
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. 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 officers mocked the victims 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. They forced them to strip naked and shower together to conceal the mess.
After Elward shot Jenkins in the mouth, lacerating his tongue and breaking his jaw, they devised a coverup. The deputies agreed to plant drugs, and false charges stood against Jenkins and Parker for months.
McAlpin and Middleton, the oldest in the group, threatened to kill other officers if they spoke up, prosecutors said. In court Thursday, McAlpin’s attorney Aafram Sellers said only Middleton threatened to kill them.