“Goon Squad” deputies get years-long sentences for racist torture of Black men

JACKSON, MISS.>> Two former Mississippi sheriff’s deputies were sentenced to years behind bars Tuesday for torturing two Black men after a neighbor complained the men were staying in a home with a white woman.

Hunter Elward, 31, was sentenced to about 20 years in prison, while Jeffrey Middleton, the leader of the so-called “Goon Squad” that abused the men, was given a 171/2-year prison sentence. Four other former law enforcement officers who admitted to torturing Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker are set to be sentenced later this week.

Before sentencing Elward,

U.S. District Judge Tom Lee called the former deputy’s actions “egregious and despicable,” and said a “sentence at the top of the guidelines range is justified — is more than justified.” He continued: “It’s what the defendant deserves. It’s what the community and the defendant’s victims deserve.”

In January 2023, the group of six burst into a Rankin County home without a warrant and assaulted Jenkins and Parker with stun guns, a sex toy and other objects. Elward admitted to shoving a gun into Jenkins’ mouth and firing in a “mock execution” that went awry.

The terror began on Jan. 24, 2023, with a racist call for extrajudicial violence when a white person phoned Rankin County Deputy Brett Mcalpin and complained that two Black men were staying with a white woman at a house in Braxton. Mcalpin told Deputy Christian Dedmon, who texted a group of white deputies so willing to use excessive force they called themselves “The Goon Squad.”

Once inside, they handcuffed Jenkins and his friend Parker and poured milk, alcohol and chocolate syrup over their faces. They forced them to strip naked and shower together to conceal the mess. They mocked the victims with racial slurs and shocked them with stun guns.

After Elward shot Jenkins in the mouth, they devised a coverup that included planting drugs and a gun. False charges stood against Jenkins and Parker for months. Jenkins suffered a lacerated tongue and broken jaw.

Last March, 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.

Jenkins is a musician, and his injuries have prevented him from singing as he used to. He also said he has trouble speaking and eating. Parker said he relives the episode in his nightmares. Both men, who were sitting in the front row, called for the “stiffest of sentences.”