Six former Mississippi law enforcement officers – prosecutors said the group called themselves the “Goon Squad” – who tortured and abused two Black men in a racist attack were sentenced to between 15 and 45 years in prison on Wednesday.
Brett Morris McAlpin, formerly the fourth highest ranking deputy in the Rankin county sheriff’s department, was sentenced to 20 years. Christian Dedmon was sentenced to 25 years. Jeffrey Middleton and Daniel Opdyke were both sentenced to 20 years, while Hunter Elward was sentenced to 45 years and Joshua Hartfield was sentenced to 15 years.
The Rankin county circuit judge Steve Ratcliff gave the men state sentences shorter than the amount of time in federal prison that they already received last month. Their sentences will run concurrently with their federal prison sentences. The men were all ordered to pay $6,431 within two years of release, and to permanently surrender their law enforcement certificates.
In March, the former Rankin county sheriff’s deputies each received federal sentences of at least one decade: McAlpin, 53, was sentenced to serve about 27 years; Dedmon, 29, was sentenced to serve 40 years; Middleton, 46, and Opdyke, 28, both were sentenced to 17.5 years; Elward, 31, was sentenced to about 27 years; while the former Richland, Mississippi police officer Hartfield, 32, was sentenced to serve 10 years in federal penitentiaries.
During the federal hearing, US district judge Tom Lee sentenced Dedmon for both his role in the group attack and for an incident the month before the attack. The six men pleaded guilty to state charges last year. He also noted that he viewed Hartfield, who was neither a member of the Rankin county sheriff’s department, nor a member of the “Goon Squad”, in a different light, saying that he was “not there by accident” because he made some “bad choices”.
After the federal sentencing hearings, the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, said: “The depravity of the crimes committed by these defendants cannot be overstated, and they will now spend between 10 and 40 years in prison for their heinous attack on citizens they had sworn to protect.”
The Mississippi attorney general’s office brought state charges of conspiracy to commit obstruction of justice against each officer in August. Dedmon, who kicked in a door, was charged with home invasion. Elward was charged with both home invasion and aggravated assault. Hartfield was off-duty when he took part in the attack.
The attack
The six white officers called themselves the “Goon Squad”, a celebratory nickname that referenced their use of excessive force and their cover-up of the racist attack on Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker in January of 2023.
The attack came after a white neighbor complained to McAlpin that Black people were staying with a white woman who owned the home in Braxton in which the assault took place. McAlpin texted other members of the “Goon Squad”, and the group went to the home without a warrant.
Parker lived there while helping to care for the owner of the home. Inside, the officers handcuffed Jenkins and Parker, poured liquids over their faces while verbally assaulting them with racial slurs. They also forced the men to strip naked and shower together.
The officers kicked, waterboarded and used Tasers on the two men, while attempting to sexually assault them during the ordeal. Prosecutors said McAlpin urinated in a closet during the attack; Hartfield used a Taser on the two victims while they were handcuffed and tried to dispose of evidence of the assault.
Opdyke and Dedmon also assaulted the two men with a sex object during the more than 90-minute assault, according to court documents.
Elward removed a bullet from the chamber of his gun and forced the gun into Jenkin’s mouth before pulling the trigger in a “mock execution”. After no bullet was fired the first time, he pulled the trigger a second time. Jenkins eventually landed in the hospital with a lacerated tongue and broken jaw.
Officers did not give Jenkins medical attention, but instead began discussing “false cover story to cover up their misconduct”, and planting and tampering with evidence, according to court documents. They agreed to plant drugs on the two men, prompting false charges that would stand for months.
Prosecutors said McAlpin and Middleton threatened to kill other officers if they reported the assault. Still, Opdyke was first to admit to what they did, showing investigators a WhatsApp thread in which they discussed their plans.
In his victim statement, Jenkins shared that he can no longer sing or play drums for his church.
“I wake up at night covered in sweat because of the nightmares of my attack. Loud noises, police lights, sirens, all give me extreme fear and anxiety. I am broken inside and I don’t ever think I’ll be the person I was,” his statement read.
Parker, too, said in his statement that he now lives in constant fear.
“My life was not perfect. But it was mine. I doubt if I’ll ever experience it again … They should be given what they gave me and Michael Jenkins – which was no mercy and I pray for the maximum sentence,” he said.
Some of the officers apologized for their participation in the attack, but an investigation by the Associated Press found that some of the officers were linked to at least four violent, racist attacks going back at least until 2019 that left two Black men dead.
