Sentencing Postponed Again for Mississippi Cops Who Tortured Black Men

The lads admitted in August to subjecting Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker to fairly a number of acts of racially motivated, violent torture. In a January 2023 episode, a bunch of six officers burst right into a home with out a warrant and assaulted Jenkins and Parker with stun weapons, a intercourse toy, and totally different objects, prosecutors said in courtroom, learning a protracted description of the abuse.

After a mock execution went awry when Jenkins was shot inside the mouth, they devised a coverup that included planting medication and a gun. False prices stood in opposition to Jenkins and Parker for months.

The conspiracy unraveled after one officer told the sheriff he had lied, leading to confessions from the others.

Former Rankin County sheriff’s Deputies Brett McAlpin, Hunter Elward, Christian Dedmon, Jeffrey Middleton and Daniel Opdyke, and former Richland metropolis police Officer Joshua Hartfield, who was off obligation all through the assault, pleaded accountable to fairly a number of federal and state prices, along with assault, conspiracy and obstruction of justice.

They agreed to prosecutor-recommended sentences ranging from 5 to 30 years, although the resolve will not be sure by that settlement. Time served for separate convictions on the state diploma will run concurrently with the presumably longer federal sentences.

The charges adopted an investigation by The Associated Press that linked some of the deputies to at least four violent encounters with Black males since 2019 that left two ineffective and one different with lasting accidents.

Prosecutors say a number of of the officers known as themselves the “Goon Squad” because of their willingness to make use of utmost energy and cover up assaults.