JACKSON, Miss.—Minutes before receiving a 20-year federal prison sentence for his role in the hours-long torture and sexual assault of two Black men last year, former Rankin County, Miss., sheriff’s deputy Hunter Elward asked the judge for permission to speak directly to his victims.
“I’ve fought hard with myself ever since that night. I hate that I got involved with this,” Elward said, facing the victims and their families. “I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry. I accept all responsibility.”
In the midst of Elward’s statements, Eddie Terrell Parker, whom the deputy and five other officers tortured along with his friend Michael Jenkins during an illegal raid at a home in Braxton, Miss., in January 2023, stood up.
“We forgive you, man,” Parker said. Jenkins, whom Elward shot in the mouth during the 2023 raid, remained seated. Elward hesitated for a moment before speaking again.
“Huh?” Elward said. Parker repeated himself: “We forgive you.” Then, he sat back down next to his loved ones.
Elward lowered his head and raised his shackled hands up to his face, appearing to wipe tears away from his face.
In Parker’s pre-written impact statement, he asked for the judge to show Elward and the other officers the same that the officers had shown them: “no mercy”.
U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi Judge Tom Lee sentenced Elward, one of the six former Rankin County, Miss., law-enforcement officers who called themselves the “goon squad,” to 241 months in prison.
Elward’s federal charges included conspiracy against rights, obstructions of justice, deprivation of rights under color of law, discharge of a firearm under a crime of violence, and conspiracy to obstruct justice.
Before the sentencing, prosecuting attorney Erin Chalk also accused Elward of “failing to intervene” during other incidents of brutality in Rankin County, including during the December 2022 physical and sexual assault of Alan Schmidt after officers pulled the man, a white Rankin County resident, over for an expired tag. Chalk read a statement from Schmidt before Elward’s sentencing.
“I pray for these officers’ souls to be healed of the evil within,” Schmidt’s statement read. “I pray for anyone who’s crossed paths with the goon squad.” Christian Dedmon, Daniel Opdyke and Hunter Elward all pleaded guilty to charges in Schmidt’s case last year.
Judge Lee spoke briefly before issuing the sentence on Tuesday morning at the Thad Cochran United States Courthouse in Jackson.
“I’ve debated with myself over whether I should say anything in explanation of my sentence,” the judge said. “Law enforcement are charged with protecting all citizens. I remain convinced the vast majority take that seriously.”
Lee said that actions like those the six officers took that night only serve to “erode public trust in law enforcement.”
“In doing so, they’ve made us all victims,” the judge said.
Lee was set to deliver the sentence for Jeffrey Middleton, the second of the six ex-officers to be sentenced, at 1 p.m. on Tuesday.
Tomorrow and Thursday, Lee will sentence the other four officers: Brett McAlpin, Christian Dedmon, Daniel Opdyke and Joshua Hartfield. Hartfield was an officer with the Richland Police Department, while the rest worked for the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department.
‘I Relive This Every Day’
Eddie Terrell Parker and Michael Jenkins held a joint press conference with their families and attorneys Malik Shabazz and Trent Walker Monday ahead of the sentencing.
“The day of justice has come,” attorney Walker said Monday. “We want the justice system to understand that what we expect is not one system of justice for lay people who are apprehended by the police and taken into custody and another justice system when the officers themselves are the criminals. We want the officers treated with the same air of criminality that they would have if they’d never put a badge on.”
The six former officers, including Hunter Elward, pleaded guilty to state and federal charges last August after illegally raiding the home in Braxton, Miss., on Jan. 24, 2023, following a white neighbor’s complaints to one of the officers about two Black men staying there with a white woman, The Associated Press reported on Aug. 3, 2023.
After breaking into the home, the officers handcuffed, beat and tortured Jenkins and Parker for hours with stun guns, a sex toy and other objects while hurling racist slurs at them. Elward ended the torture session by shoving his gun into Jenkins’ mouth and firing, which “shattered Jenkins’ jaw and severely lacerated his tongue,” a separate civil lawsuit states.
The officers then conspired to cover up the assault, claiming that Jenkins had “reached for a gun” as the officers attempted to pursue a narcotics investigation. Investigators say Christian Dedmon used meth deputies had confiscated from a prior drug bust and claimed it belonged to Jenkins. Officials dropped all charges against Jenkins and Parker as it became apparent that they had committed no crimes and instead had been victims.
Jenkins spent weeks at University of Mississippi Medical Center receiving treatment after the attack. Attorneys Trent Walker and Malik Shabazz filed the civil lawsuit on behalf of the two men on June 12, 2023.
At a press conference on Monday, Parker thanked the public and media for shedding light on the case but said he struggles with the spotlight he’s received after the ordeal.
“It’s been a trying year,” Parker said. “I re-live this every day. Every time I turn on the TV, every time I get on my phone. When I’m on social media, I see it. Everybody’s telling my story,” he continued. “It’s been a rollercoaster, man. I’m still riding.”
‘They Took The Law Into Their Own Hands’
Attorneys Trent Walker and Malik Shabazz questioned on Monday how Rankin County Sheriff Bryan Bailey could have been unaware of the actions of his officers and said they believed the extent of Rankin County officers involved with the “goon squad” was more prolific than just the six officers who terrorized Jenkins and Parker last January.
“These, in my opinion, are just the six that were available to come terrorize that night,” Walker said.
Shabazz called the attack indicative of a “pattern” that existed because of a lack of oversight in the sheriff’s department. “All of this, every criminal act, every act of lawlessness that has occurred, it belongs to the responsibility ultimately of Sheriff Bryan Bailey and Rankin County,” he said.
Bailey released a statement to the Pelahatchie News on Nov. 28, 2023, saying he was implementing new policies after what happened to Parker and Jenkins. Bailey won reelection in November after running unopposed.
“The safety and security of our citizens, and visitors, is one of our main objectives, and we take all occurrences of this nature very seriously,” Bailey said.
“All RCSD deputies shall intervene if they witness a fellow officer engaging in any act that is unethical, violates federal or state law (including when force is being excessively or unreasonably applied or applied when there is no longer a justification), or violates RCSD policy,” the policy states.
Bailey said that “inappropriate conduct from an isolated group of deputies injured citizens in our county and undermined the reputation of this department.”
An Associated Press investigation last year found that several deputies involved in the case had been “involved in at least four violent encounters with Black men since 2019 that left two dead and another with lasting injuries.” A separate joint investigation between Mississippi Today and the New York Times found a pattern stretching back decades.
At the victims’ press conference in Jackson on Monday, Rankin County NAACP president Angela English called the ex-officers “thugs” and “criminals” who “took the law into their own hands.”
“For the heinousness of these crimes, we expect to get the maximum sentences for them,” English continued. “We want them to know and we want the world to know that we can’t erase Mississippi’s past, we know what it is but we can go forward today.”
