Six former Mississippi police officers have pleaded guilty to a racist assault on two Black men that ended with an officer shooting one man in the mouth.
The officers, who are all white, entered a house without a warrant on January 24, assaulting the men with a sex toy and using stun guns and other objects to abuse them over a roughly 90-minute period, court documents show.
After one victim was shot and wounded in a “mock execution” that went awry, documents say the officers conspired to plant and tamper with evidence instead of providing medical aid.
The Justice Department launched its civil rights probe in February.
The Mississippi attorney general’s office announced on Thursday it had filed state charges against the six former officers, including assault, conspiracy and obstruction of justice.
Five former Rankin County Sheriff’s Department employees pleaded guilty, including Christian Dedmon, Hunter Elward, Brett McAlpin, Jeffrey Middleton and Daniel Opdyke.
Joshua Hartfield, a former Richland police officer who was off duty when he participated in the raid, also pleaded guilty.
Court documents say some of the officers called themselves “The Goon Squad” - a nickname used “because of their willingness to use excessive force and not to report it.”
The victims, Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker, filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Rankin County in June seeking $400 million in damages.
The officers initially went to the property on January 24 because a white neighbour complained Black people were staying with a white woman who owned the house.
The documents say Mr Parker was a longtime friend of the homeowner and was helping care for her.
Officers used racist slurs against the two men during the raid and “warned them to stay out of Rankin County and go back to Jackson or ‘their side’ of the Pearl River — areas with higher concentrations of Black residents,” according to the court documents.
Elward shoved a gun into Mr Jenkins’ mouth and fired, court documents say. The bullet lacerated Mr Jenkins’ tongue and broke his jaw before exiting his neck.
Before the raid, the officers agreed to enter without a warrant if they could avoid being spotted by the home’s security cameras. They also planned to use excessive force but not to cause visible injuries to the men’s faces so there would be “no bad mugshots,” the documents say.
The deputies threw eggs on the handcuffed victims and forced them to lie on their backs while pouring milk, alcohol and chocolate syrup down their mouths.
They forced the men to strip naked and shower to remove the evidence.
The officers also repeatedly electrocuted the victims with stun guns to compare whether the sheriff’s department or police department weapons were more powerful.
“The defendants in this case tortured and inflicted unspeakable harm on their victims,” US Attorney General Merrick Garland said, adding they “egregiously violated the civil rights of citizens who they were supposed to protect.”
The civil rights charges come after an investigation by The Associated Press linked the deputies to at least four violent encounters with Black men since 2019 that left two dead and another with lasting injuries.
US law enforcement brutality has come under increased scrutiny following the 2020 killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police and the January beating death of Tyre Nichols after a traffic stop in Memphis, Tennessee.
Dedmon, Elward and Opdyke have also pleaded guilty to three federal felony offences, in relation to a separate incident that took place on December 4.
Prosecutors said Dedmon beat a white man, used a Taser on him and fired a gun near his head to coerce a confession, while Elward and Opdyke failed to intervene.
Kristen Clarke, who heads the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said the Mississippi officers “caused harm to the entire community who feel that they can’t trust the police officers who are supposed to serve them.”
The former officers, shackled at their wrists and feet, walked into the courthouse with family members on Thursday and all six were taken into custody by federal marshals.
The defence attorneys did not comment on their clients’ behaviour during the court appearance.
“They became the criminals they swore to protect us from,” US Attorney Darren LaMarca said. “Now, they’ll be treated as the criminals as they are.”
US District Judge Tom Lee said the men will be sentenced in mid-November.
The men are scheduled to plead guilty to the state charges on August 14, said Mary-Helen Wall, a deputy state attorney general.
