When Rankin County, Mississippi, announced the $2.5 million settlement in the “Goon Squad” police brutality case on May 1, 2025, Michael Jenkins and Eddie Parker thought their nightmare was over. It had been more than two years since six white Rankin County law enforcement officers kicked in Parker’s door and tortured the two Black men, both physically and sexually, before shooting Jenkins in the mouth.
Jenkins and Parker were ready to move on, with their lawyers, Trent Walker and Malik Z. Shabazz, issuing a statement asking the public to give “them and their families … their privacy in order to heal.” The lawyers expressed their hope that “Rankin County and the State of Mississippi can turn a new and better page in policing and racial relations.”
But less than a week later, Cypress Point Resort was hosting the local Political Breakfast event on Saturday, May 3, 2025, when Rankin County Supervisor Steve Gaines spoke the words that would spark two defamation lawsuits.
“Where’s Jason? I saw him earlier. Our attorney that represented us in the big lawsuit, good gracious. This is the greatest attorney that I’ve ever had any association with,” he said, apparently referring to Rankin County Sheriff’s Department attorney Jason Dare, who defended the department during the Goon Squad lawsuit. “… He beat the pants off of those guys—the dopers, the people that raped and doped your daughters.”
Mississippi Today first published a recording of those remarks on May 12, 2025.
Jenkins has never been convicted of any crime, let alone rape; Parker had a 2019 drug-related conviction in Alabama, but that was almost a full four years before the Goon Squad incident in Mississippi.
The six law enforcement officers convicted for attacking Parker and Jenkins admitted that they broke into the home without a warrant to torture Jenkins and Parker after a white neighbor complained that two Black men were staying there with a white woman.
Once in the home, officers handcuffed the men, calling them racial slurs as they beat and tortured them with stun guns, a sex toy and other objects before shooting Jenkins in the mouth, shattering his jaw. The officers involved were sentenced to a combined total of almost 105 years for torturing the men.
Gaines: Comments ‘Not Aimed at Anyone Personally’
Dozens of people—residents and journalists alike—heard Supervisor Steve Gaines’ statement about Eddie Parker and Michael Jenkins at the political breakfast.
“The statement was recorded and subsequently published by Mississippi Today on May 6, 2025, and republished on May 13, 2025,” attorney Trent Walker said in the May 8 court filing. “The statement was further disseminated through broadcast media, including WAPT News, and circulated widely online and through social media … reach(ing) a broad audience beyond those present at the event.”
Within a month, Gaines’ comments appeared in at least six news publications and had been posted on at least five different social media platforms, the lawsuit noted.
“(Parker and Jenkins) were going about the business of getting their lives back, and then Mr. Gaines pops up and just couldn’t leave well enough alone,” their attorney, Trent Walker, told the Mississippi Free Press on May 19.
Gaines’ comments came more than a year after the officers involved began pleading guilty in court, Rankin County Sheriff’s Department changed its policies, and the U.S. Department of Justice opened an investigation of Rankin County law enforcement in response to the incident.
The backlash against Gaines’ comment came quickly, and 11 days later, Gaines released a statement saying the controversial comment he made in his 22-minute-long speech was not aimed at Parker or Jenkins.
“I want to be clear that my comments were not aimed at anyone personally, and I did not name any individuals,” Gaines said in a statement on May 14, 2025. “… I take my role as supervisor very seriously, and I strive to serve each and every Rankin County citizen in my district. If there was any confusion, I want to clarify that my focus—then and now—is supporting the ongoing efforts by law enforcement in Rankin County to keep our community safe and strong.”
Gaines did not provide an alternative explanation for who he could have been talking about when he referred to “the people that raped and doped your daughters,” however.
Then came the calls for his resignation.
Residents spoke in front of the Rankin County Board of Supervisors at its May 15, 2025.
“I’m here to officially and respectfully publicly ask Mr. Gaines to resign, as a lifelong resident of Rankin County and a constituent of District Four,” one man, Able Harvey, said. “It’s disheartening and discouraging to see and hear his blatantly offensive, disrespectful comments during the healing process of our county.”
But Gaines did not heed those community members’ calls. The Board of Supervisors did not publicly denounce his comments, either.
Walker: Gaines’ Remarks ‘Cold, Calculating and Heartless’
Jenkins and Parker filed dual defamation lawsuits against Gaines on May 4, 2026, one year and one day after the supervisor’s comment at the Cypress Point Resort event.
“When you accuse people who have done nothing wrong of being dopers and rapists, … that’s naturally defaming,” attorney Trent Walker told the Mississippi Free Press. “Then to say it in a public forum, especially given what the two of them had already been through to get here, was just cold, calculating, and heartless on the part of Mr. Gaines.”
Gaines’ comments “caused severe reputational and emotional harm,” for Jenkins and Parker, their lawsuits allege.
“(Jenkins) suffered reputational harm, humiliation, and emotional distress for which the Defendant, Steve Gaines should be held liable,” Walker and Shabazz said in their May 4 filing.
‘That’s Naturally Defaming’
The lawsuit claims that the Rankin County Board of Supervisors’ decision not to issue a correction or retraction of Gaines’ statement, nor to discipline him, demonstrated official approval of his statements.
This and what the lawsuit alleges as the county’s unwillingness to address documented patterns of police misconduct—outside of internal policy changes implemented by Sheriff Brian Bailey himself—showed deliberate indifference, the lawsuit alleges.
Because Parker and Jenkins are not public figures, they do not have to prove Gaines showed “actual malice” in making his statement the way government figures like former Gov. Phil Bryant will need to in his ongoing defamation lawsuit.
Instead, the two men need to prove that Gaines’ statement was false, negligent, spoken in front of a third party and harmful to their reputations. In a defamation case, proving negligence means the plaintiff’s lawyer needs to show Gaines did not fact-check his statement, or outright knew it was false.
NAACP Leader Decries ‘Cruel Assault On Their Character’
Rankin County NAACP chapter president Angela English condemned Supervisor Steve Gaines’ comments and voiced her support for the defamation lawsuit.
“For a public official to use his platform to weaponize, defame, dehumanize, and slander these two Black men, I felt was a cruel assault on their character, and it showed its blatant disregard for human life and inhuman dignity,” English told the Mississippi Free Press. “When (Gaines) refused to acknowledge the deep-seated racial trauma that they have put on (Parker and Jenkins), instead of fostering accountability, healing, and reform, it was just appalling to me that his statements would actively reinforce that kind of toxic culture that was being on full display.”
English explained that the law enforcement officers’ decision to target the two Black men after a neighbor informed them that a white woman was living with them matched historical prejudices.
“There is a sentiment among white males specifically that Black men, African American men, should not look at engaging … with the white women … to love or or just socialize or just even be just platonic,” the NAACP leader said, adding that there is no expectation for white men not to associate with Black women and calling it “a slave master mentality that still exists today.”
English’s only qualm with the defamation lawsuit is that it was not filed sooner.
“You need to understand that as African Americans in Mississippi, we are not going to turn the clocks backwards—we’re going forward,” English said. “We survived over 400 years of slavery, over 60 or 70 years of Jim Crow, and we’re not going to allow you as an elected official, or in any capacity, to define the character of our people.”
Rankin County Circuit Court granted itself a recusal from the case on May 18, 2026.
The Mississippi Supreme Court assigned Jeff Weill, Sr., as the Special Judge for the cases in dual orders on May 21, 2026. Weill is a former Hinds County Circuit Court Judge.
The Mississippi Free Press reached out to Gaines for this story, but he said he had no comment.
He will be up for re-election in 2027.
The Rankin County Sheriff’s Department was not available for comment for this story.
Follow the Mississippi Free Press’ coverage of the Goon Squad cases and read past stories here.
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