By MICHAEL GOLDBERG and EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS (Associated Press)
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The process of determining punishment continues on Wednesday for two more of the former white law enforcement officers in Mississippi who admitted last year to unlawfully entering a home and subjecting two Black men to torture using a stun gun, a sex toy, and other items.
Daniel Opdyke, 28, and Christian Dedmon, 29, are scheduled to appear separately before U.S. District Judge Tom Lee. They are facing long prison sentences.
On Tuesday, Lee sentenced 31-year-old Hunter Elward to nearly 20 years in prison and 46-year-old Jeffrey Middleton to 17.5 years. They, like Opdyke and Dedmon, were employed as deputies of Rankin County during the attack.
Another former deputy, Brett McAlpin, 53, and a former Richland police officer, Joshua Hartfield, 32, are scheduled for sentencing on Thursday.
Last March, an investigation by The Associated Press tied some of the deputies to at least four violent encounters with Black men since 2019, resulting in two deaths and one individual sustaining lasting injuries. Federal prosecutors announced charges in August.
The former officers maintained their fabricated story for months before eventually confessing to torturing Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker. Elward admitted to forcefully placing a gun into Jenkins' mouth and firing it, resulting in a failed “mock execution.”
In a statement on Tuesday, Attorney General Merrick Garland denounced the “atrocious attack on citizens they had sworn an oath to protect.”
Before sentencing Elward and Middleton, Lee described their actions as “outrageous and disgraceful.”
The ordeal began on Jan. 24, 2023, with a racially motivated call for extrajudicial violence when a white individual in Rankin County informed McAlpin that two Black men were staying with a white woman at a residence in Braxton. McAlpin informed Dedmon, who then messaged a group of white deputies who were eager to use excessive force and referred to themselves as “The Goon Squad.”
Upon gaining entry, they restrained Jenkins and his companion Parker, poured milk, alcohol, and chocolate syrup over their faces, and coerced them to undress and shower together to conceal the mess. They taunted the victims with racial insults and used stun guns to shock them. Dedmon and Opdyke attacked them with a sex toy.
Following Elward's shooting of Jenkins in the mouth, resulting in a lacerated tongue and broken jaw, they concocted a plan to cover it up, which included planting drugs and a firearm. False charges were brought against Jenkins and Parker for months.
The predominantly white Rankin County is located just east of the state capital, Jackson, which is home to one of the highest percentages of Black residents of any major U.S. city. According to court documents, the officers repeatedly shouted racial slurs at Jenkins and Parker, instructing them to “stay out of Rankin County and return to Jackson or ‘their side’ of the Pearl River.
Opdyke's attorney, Jeff Reynolds, stated on Wednesday that Opdyke was the officer who initially approached the authorities and disclosed what had occurred. Opdyke came forward on April 12, providing investigators with the WhatsApp message thread where the officers discussed their plan and the events that transpired. He was able to do so because he did not dispose of his phone in a river, as some of the other officers did. Had he done so, the encrypted messages might not have been uncovered.
Dedmon and Opdyke, like Elward, are also being sentenced after admitting their roles in an attack on a white man on Dec. 4, 2022 — weeks before Jenkins and Parker were tortured. Prosecutors revealed the victim’s identity Tuesday as Alan Schmidt. Reynolds said Opdyke held Schmidt down until Dedmon arrived, but didn’t beat him or sexually assault him.
As per a statement from Schmidt that prosecutors read in court, Dedmon accused him of having stolen property during a traffic stop that night. Schmidt said he was handcuffed, pulled from his vehicle and beaten until he “started to see spots.”
Prosecutors stated that Elward and Opdyke did not step in as Dedmon punched and kicked him, used a Taser on him, fired his gun into the air to threaten him, and then sexually assaulted him.
Schmidt said Dedmon forced him to his knees, exposed his “private part” and hit him in the face with it, attempting to insert it into his mouth. Dedmon then grabbed Schmidt’s genitals and rubbed against his body as he screamed for them to stop, Schmidt said.
“What twisted person does this? He already has so much power over us, so to behave this way, he must be truly sick in the head,” Schmidt wrote in his statement.
Elward and Middlelton were emotional as they apologized in court on Tuesday. Elward’s attorney, Joe Hollomon, said his client first witnessed Rankin County deputies ignore misconduct in 2017.
“Hunter (Elward) was introduced to a culture of corruption at the Rankin County Sheriff’s Office,” Hollomon said.
Rankin County Sheriff Bryan Bailey, who took office in 2012, did not disclose any details about his deputies’ actions when he announced they had been fired last June. After they admitted guilt in August, Bailey said the officers had gone rogue and promised to change the department. Jenkins and Parker have demanded his resignation, and they have filed a $400 million civil lawsuit against the department.
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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.
