Hours after two Rankin County, Miss., sheriff’s deputies who were part of the local “goon squad” received lengthy prison sentences on Tuesday for torturing two Black men, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland vowed to hold law-enforcement officers accountable for acts of brutality against the citizens.
On Tuesday, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi Judge Tom Lee sentenced former Rankin County Sheriff’s Office deputies Hunter Elward and Jeffrey Middleton to 20 years and 17.5 years, respectively, on federal charges. In August, the men pleaded guilty to state and federal charges tied to the warrantless home raid and vicious attacks on Eddie Terrell Parker and Michael Corey Jenkins in Braxton, Miss., on the night of Jan. 24, 2023.
“These defendants will spend 20 years and 17.5 years in prison for their heinous attack on citizens they had sworn an oath to protect,” Garland said in a statement Tuesday, noting that after the assault, the “defendants gathered outside to come up with a cover story as the victim lay bleeding on the floor.”
“The Justice Department will hold accountable officers who violate constitutional rights, and in so doing, betray the public trust,” the attorney general added.
Third Officer Sentenced
A third officer involved in the attacks, Daniel Opdyke, received a sentence of 17.5 years this morning. The Associated Press reported that the 28-year-old officer “cried profusely as he spoke in court before the judge announced his sentence” and that he told the victims he had reflected on “how I transformed into the monster I became that night.”
“The weight of my actions and the harm I’ve caused will haunt me every day,” he said. “I wish I could take away your suffering.”
Opdyke’s attorney said today that he was the first of the six officers to confess to investigator’s what he and the five others had done to Michael Jenkins and Eddie Parker that night, Associated Press reporter Michael Goldberg posted on his X account.
The ex-deputies have yet to face sentencing for state charges related to the case.
Federal charges for Elward, Middleton and Opdyke included conspiracy against rights, obstruction of justice, deprivation of rights under color of law and conspiracy to obstruct justice. Elward, the officer who shot Jenkins in the mouth during the assault, faced an additional charge for discharge of a firearm under a crime of violence, contributing to his longer prison sentence.
Reporters, onlookers and the victims’ loved ones packed a courtroom at the Thad Cochran United States Courthouse in Jackson, Miss., on Tuesday to hear Lee’s verdicts. Before delivering Elward’s sentence, the judge 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,” Lee said.
Lee is set to sentence a fourth ex-Rankin County sheriff’s deputy, Christian Dedmon, today.
The two remaining ex-officers who pleaded guilty to federal charges related to the case, Joshua Hartfield and Brett McAlpin, will learn their sentences tomorrow. Hartfield served as a Richland police officer at the time while the other five men charged were Rankin County sheriff’s deputies.
‘I Am Hurt. I Am Broken.’
The six former officers pleaded guilty to state and federal charges last August after breaking into a home in Braxton, Miss., on Jan. 24, 2023. The raid began after a white neighbor complained to then-Rankin County Sheriff’s Office Chief Investigator Brett McAlpin that two Black men were staying at the house in Braxton with a white woman, the Department of Justice said in the indictments.
The indictment says Eddie Parker was staying at the house while serving as a caregiver for the woman, who is a childhood friend of his. The neighbor’s identity remains unknown to the public.
After breaking into the home that night, the officers handcuffed, beat and tortured Parker and his friend, Michael Jenkins for nearly two hours with stun guns, a sex toy and pieces of wood and kitchen utensils; the officers hurled racist slurs at the men while dousing them with milk, chocolate syrup, alcohol and eggs, lead prosecutor for the case Erin Chalk said during Elward’s sentencing at the Thad Cochran United States Courthouse in Jackson, Miss., on Monday.
Elward ended the torture session by shoving his gun into Jenkins’ mouth and firing, intending to “dry-fire” as part of a “mock execution,” court documents state. But after pulling the trigger a second time, the gun discharged and a bullet “lacerated (Jenkin’s) tongue, broke his jaw and exited out of his neck,” the DOJ indictment says.
As Jenkins bled on the floor, the officers “huddled up on the rear screened-in porch” and conspired to cover up the assault of the two men and shooting of Jenkins, under the guise that Jenkins had “reached for a gun” in the midst of a narcotics investigation, indictments say. Investigators say former deputy Christian Dedmon gathered methamphetamine that deputies had confiscated during 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.
Brett McAlpin and Jeffrey Middleton also stole items from the home that had “caught their attention” as they searched the house after breaking in and detaining the victims, the court documents state.
Jenkins spent weeks at University of Mississippi Medical Center receiving treatment after Elward shot him during the illegal raid. Attorneys Trent Walker and Malik Shabazz filed a civil lawsuit on behalf of the two men on June 12, 2023.
Other ‘Goon Squad’ Incidents Emerge
The torture of Eddie Terrell Parker and Michael Jenkins led other residents to speak out about how the Rankin County “goon squad” had terrorized them. 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.
Alan Schmidt, a white Rankin County resident who had remained anonymous until this week, spoke openly to Mississippi Today and the New York Times about the physical and sexual assault he says former Rankin County deputies Christian Dedmon and Daniel Opdyke subjected him to after pulling him over for an expired tag in December 2022.
Dedmon, Opdyke and Elward all pleaded guilty to charges in Schmidt’s case last year.
In a pre-written victim statement read during Elward’s sentencing on Monday, Jenkins said the decisions the six officers made that night irreversibly changed his life.
“Jan. 24 was the worst day of my life,” Jenkins said. “I am hurt. I am broken. I am ashamed and embarrassed by the entire situation,” the statement continued. Jenkins described himself as a singer and musician who can “no longer do what I love” because of damage caused after Elward shot him in the face during the attack.
“I don’t think I’ll ever be the person that I was. I could be dead and gone, but the God I serve has other plans,” Jenkins said.
Rankin County Sheriff Bryan Bailey has rejected repeated calls to resign.
He won reelection to the position in November after running unopposed. Bailey released a statement that same month saying that his department had created new policies responding to the torture of Parker and Jenkins.
“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.
On Monday, Parker and Jenkins’ attorneys Malik Shabazz and Trent Walker joined the two victims and their families for a press conference in Jackson, Miss., a day before the first two officers’ sentencing.
Walker said he believed there were more officers involved with the “goon squad” than just the six who have pleaded guilty over the attacks on Jenkins and Parker. “These, in my opinion, are just the six that were available to come terrorize that night,” Walker said.
Shabazz questioned how Bailey could claim he did not know the terror that his deputies were unleashing on residents.
“All of this, every criminal act, every act of lawlessness that has occurred, belongs to the responsibility, ultimately, of Sheriff Bryan Bailey and Rankin County,” he said.
