By MICHAEL GOLDBERG (Associated Press/Report for America)
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Two Black men who were tortured by six Mississippi law enforcement officers requested a federal judge on Monday to apply the severest penalties against the corrupted former lawmen.
The ex-law officers confessed in August to subjecting Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker to numerous racially motivated, violent acts of torture.
In response to a neighbor’s complaint in January 2023 about Jenkins and Parker staying with a white woman in a home, the group of six burst in without a warrant and assaulted them with stun guns, a sex toy, and other items.
After a mock execution went wrong when Jenkins was shot in the mouth, they tried to cover it up by planting drugs and a gun. The Rankin County Sheriff’s Department then supported the deputies’ false charges, which stood against Jenkins and Parker for months.
U.S. District Judge Tom Lee will sentence two defendants each day, on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday after twice delaying the proceedings.
An attorney for Jenkins and Parker urged on Monday for the most severe sentences.
“Michael Jenkins and Eddie Parker continue to suffer emotionally and physically since this horrific and bloody attack by Rankin County deputies,” Malik Shabazz stated. “A message must be sent to police in Mississippi and all over America,” he said, that such criminal conduct “will be met with the harshest of consequences.”
At a news conference on Monday, Jenkins and Parker said they continued to suffer as a result of what they endured.
“It’s been very hard for me, for us,” Jenkins said. “We are hoping for the best and preparing for the worst.”
The charged officers include former Rankin deputies Brett McAlpin, Christian Dedmon, Hunter Elward, Jeffrey Middleton, and Daniel Opdyke, and Joshua Hartfield, a former Richland police officer. They pleaded guilty to charges including conspiracy against rights, obstruction of justice, deprivation of rights under color of law, discharge of a firearm under a crime of violence, and conspiracy to obstruct justice.
Most of their lawyers did not immediately respond to emails requesting comment on Monday. Jason Kirschberg, representing Opdyke, said: “Daniel has accepted responsibility for his actions, and his failures to act. … He has admitted he was wrong and feels deep remorse for the pain he caused the victims.”
On the federal charges, Dedmon and Elward each face a maximum sentence of 120 years plus life in prison and $2.75 million in fines. Hartfield faces a possible sentence of 80 years and $1.5 million, McAlpin faces 90 years and $1.75 million, Middleton faces 80 years and $1.5 million, and Opdyke could be sentenced to 100 years with a $2 million fine.
The ex-officers accepted sentences recommended by prosecutors, ranging from five to 30 years in state court, but time served for separate convictions at the state level will run concurrently with the potentially longer federal sentences.
An inquiry by The Associated Press released in March 2023 connected some of the deputies to at least four violent incidents with Black men since 2019, resulting in two deaths and permanent injuries for another.
Shabazz mentioned that the false charges against the victims were not dismissed until June. At that point, federal and state investigators began to close in on the deputies, and one of them began to talk. They were subsequently fired, and prosecutors announced the federal charges in August.
Prosecutors claim that some of the officers called themselves the “Goon Squad” because they were willing to use excessive force and hide their attacks.
Rankin County Sheriff Bryan Bailey described the crimes by his deputies as the most severe case of police brutality he had ever witnessed. Bailey had remained largely silent about the incident for months. After the officers pleaded guilty in August, Bailey stated that the officers had acted independently and promised to reform the department.
Jenkins and Parker have demanded his resignation, and they have filed a $400 million civil lawsuit against the department.
“I experience this every day,” Parker said. “Every time I turn on the TV. Every time I get on the phone, every time I’m on social media, people are retelling my story.”
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The names of Brett and McAlpin have been fixed.
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Michael Goldberg is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow him at @mikergoldberg.
