Goon Squad officers face conviction in Mississippi torture cases

Six former law enforcement officers who called themselves the Goon Squad will be sentenced starting today in Mississippi, months after pleading guilty to federal civil rights crimes for torturing and sexually assaulting two black men and a third white man who has so far remained anonymous.

Over the next three days, the officers, who could each be sentenced to 10 years or more in prison, will appear in federal court in Jackson. Prosecutors are expected to detail the officers’ violent actions, and victims will have the opportunity to share their stories.

The officers could speak publicly for the first time if they choose to talk about their crimes or ask the judge for leniency.

Hunter Elward, who pleaded guilty to shooting one of the victims, will be sentenced first Tuesday morning. The remaining officers will then be sentenced at individual hearings.

The sheriff’s department in Rankin County, a suburban community just outside Jackson, came to national attention last year after five Rankin County deputies and a Richland Police detective raided the home of Eddie Parker, 36, and his friend, Michael Jenkins , 33, after a tip about suspicious activity.

The officers handcuffed and tortured the men by repeatedly shocking them with Tasers, beating them and sexually assaulting them with a sex toy. Mr. Elward stuck his gun in Mr. Jenkins’ mouth and shot him, shattering his jaw and nearly killing him.

“I felt like I was looking the devil in the eye,” Mr. Parker said at a news conference on Monday.

The officers destroyed evidence and, to justify the shooting, falsely claimed that Mr. Jenkins had pointed a BB gun at them, federal prosecutors said.

Three department deputies have also pleaded guilty in a separate incident, but prosecutors have so far provided few details about what happened. Prosecutors are expected to read a statement written by the victim in that case, 28-year-old Alan Schmidt.

So far, charges against officers in Rankin County have focused solely on these two incidents, but residents of poor parts of the county say the sheriff has routinely targeted them with a similar level of force.

Last November, The New York Times and Mississippi Today published an investigation showing that officers from the Rankin Sheriff’s Department, many of whom called themselves the Goon Squad, had been barging into homes and handcuffing people for nearly two decades. torture for information or confessions.

In their pursuit of drug arrests, officers rammed a stick into one man’s throat until he vomited, dripped molten metal onto another man’s skin and held down and beat people until they were bloody and bruised, according to dozens of people who said that they witnessed or experienced the raids.

Many of those who said they experienced violence filed lawsuits or formal complaints detailing their encounters with the department. A few said they contacted Rankin County Sheriff Bryan Bailey directly but were ignored.

Sheriff Bailey, who has denied knowledge of the incidents, has faced calls to resign from local activists and the NAACP. He has said he will not resign.

Malcolm Holmes, a professor of criminal justice and sociology at the University of Wyoming, said the Goon Squad case would “become one that will find its way into the chronicles of history.”

“There is so much well-documented evidence that this is a pattern of behavior,” he said, noting that the case “revealed something that we have kept hidden for a long time, especially in rural America.”

Sentencing hearings this week are expected to reveal more details about the violence committed by Rankin County officers, including what happened to Mr. Schmidt.

In an interview with The Times and Mississippi Today last week, Mr. Schmidt spoke publicly for the first time about what happened in December 2022 when a Rankin County sheriff’s deputy pulled him over for driving with an expired license plate.

According to the federal complaint, deputies Christian Dedmon, Hunter Elward and Daniel Opdyke arrived on the scene shortly afterward. Two other officers, including the one who stopped Mr. Schmidt, were also present during the arrest, Mr. Schmidt said. Neither has been criminally charged.

Mr. Schmidt said the officers accused him of stealing tools from his boss, and then Mr. Dedmon pressed a gun to his head and fired it into the air before threatening to dump his body in the Pearl River.

“I thought this was it,” Mr. Schmidt said. “I will never see my family again.”

Mr. Dedmon and the other deputies beat Mr. Schmidt and held his arm in a fire anthill before shocking him repeatedly with a Taser, Mr. Schmidt said.

Mr. Dedmon also pressed his genitals against the man’s face and bare buttocks as he screamed for help and kicked at the deputy, Mr. Schmidt said.

“It still haunts me all the time,” Mr. Schmidt said of the experience.

Rankin County District Attorney Bubba Bramlett has started that review and dismiss criminal cases involving members of the Goon Squad, his office confirmed last week, but Mr Bramlett declined to share details of the cases investigated.

State lawmakers introduced a bill in January that would expand oversight of law enforcement in Mississippi, allowing the state board that certifies officers to investigate and revoke the licenses of officers accused of misconduct, regardless of whether they face criminal charges. Lawmakers have said the Goon Squad and several other incidents of alleged police misconduct in Mississippi contributed to the bill’s passage.

The Mississippi House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly in favor of the bill last week. The Senate is expected to vote on the measure in the coming weeks.