Two of the six Mississippi ‘Goon Squad’ police officers who brutally assaulted two black men while searching a house have been pictured in mugshots a day after pleading guilty.
The group, who are all white, admitted to assaulting Michael Corey Jenkins, 32, and Eddie Terrell Parker, 35, after entering a house in Braxton, Simpson County, for around 90 minutes on January 24 with sex toys, firearms, stun guns, milk, eggs, alcohol and chocolate syrup.
On Friday, mugshots of Joshua Hartfield and Brett McAlpin were released by the Forrest County Adult Detention Center.
It was McAlpin who received a phone call from a white neighbor on January 24, complaining that two black men were staying with a white woman inside a Braxton home.
McAlpin told Deputy Christian Dedmon, who texted a group of white deputies so willing to use excessive force they called themselves ‘The Goon Squad,’ which included Hartfield.
On Friday, mugshots of Joshua Hartfield (pictured left) and Brett McAlpin (pictured right) were released by the Forrest County Adult Detention Center. They are two of the six Mississippi ‘Goon Squad’ police officers who brutally assaulted two black men while searching a house
‘Are y’all available for a mission?’ Dedmon asked. They – Dedmon, Hartfield, Hunter Elward, Brett McAlpin, Jeffrey Middleton and Daniel Opdyke – were all in.
The former cops, who worked for Rankin County Sheriff’s department and Richland Police Department at the time of the shocking incident, appeared in a federal court and pleaded guilty on Thursday after the civil rights charges were unsealed.
The men were huddled on the back porch of a Mississippi home as Michael Corey Jenkins lay on the floor, blood gushing from his mutilated tongue where one of the police officers shoved a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.
The officers devised a scheme to cover up dozens of stunning acts of brutality that they had just carried out during a 90-minute period of terror against Jenkins and Parker.
The officers planted drugs. They stole surveillance footage from the house. They tried to dispose of other evidence. They agreed on a set of lies that would further upend their victims’ lives.
Careful to avoid security cameras at the house, they burst in without a warrant, starting the torture session of physical, sexual and psychological abuse. They handcuffed Jenkins and his friend Parker and poured milk, alcohol and chocolate syrup over their faces.
They forced them to strip naked and shower together to conceal the mess. They mocked the victims with racial slurs. They electrocuted them.
The officers had meant to torture the men without leaving physical scars. But one of the officers shot Jenkins in the mouth. Miraculously, Jenkins survived.
Michael Corey Jenkins (pictured) was tortured alongside his friend Eddie Terrell Parker for around 90 minutes in a home belonging to a friend of Parker’s
Parker told how on the night in question, the deputies suddenly came into the home where Parker was living and proceeded to handcuff and beat them
The six cops are facing a combined total of 590 years and two life sentences for their sickening crimes. They will be sentenced in November by a federal judge
The Department of Justice began investigating the sick and twisted cops, who spent 90 minutes torturing two men in last January, in February
The six officers pleaded guilty Thursday to a long list of federal civil rights charges.
The Mississippi attorney general’s office announced afterward that it had filed state charges against the men including assault, conspiracy and obstruction of justice.
Law enforcement officers are seldom charged for crimes committed on the job, and it’s rarer still for them to plead guilty.
The charges follow an investigation that linked some of the deputies to at least four violent encounters with black men since 2019 that left two dead and another with lasting injuries.
They pleaded guilty to charges including conspiracy against rights, obstructions of justice, deprivation of rights under color of law, discharge of a firearm under a crime of violence, and conspiracy to obstruct justice.
Opdyke ‘admits he was wrong for his part in the horrific harms’ and ‘is prepared to face the consequences of his actions,’ attorney Jason Kirschberg said in a statement.
Hartfield´s attorney Vicki Gilliam said while he ‘cannot change what he did, he has shown that he is ready to accept consequences.’
Attorneys for the other men did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Jenkins said one of the deputies shoved a gun in his mouth and then fired the weapon, leaving him with serious injuries to his face, a lacerated tongue and broken jaw. He was hospitalized for weeks
A deputy placed the barrel of a gun in Jenkins’ mouth, it fired and the bullet exited behind one of his ears
Michael Jenkins, second from right, stands with his mother, Mary Jenkins, center, and their attorneys in February following his release from the hospital after being shot by sheriff’s
The families of Michael Corey Jenkins and Damien Cameron sit together during the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division tour
An anti-police brutality activist looks back at the entrance to the Rankin County Sheriff’s Office in Brandon
The deputies were under the watch of Rankin County Sheriff Bryan Bailey, who called it the worst episode of police brutality he has seen in his career.
In Rankin County, the brutality visited upon Jenkins and Parker was not a botched police operation, but an assembly of rogue officers ‘who tortured them all under the authority of a badge, which they disgraced,’ U.S. Attorney Darren LaMarca said.
The county is just east of the state capital, Jackson, home to one of the highest percentages of Black residents of any major U.S. city. A towering monument topped by a Confederate soldier stands across the street from the Rankin County sheriff´s office.
Federal court records detail how they burst into the home without a warrant and tortured Jenkins and Parker before the shooting.
As Jenkins lay bleeding, the officers knew the ‘mission’ had gone too far. Instead of coming clean, they devised a hasty cover-up that included a fictitious narcotics bust, stolen surveillance footage and threats.
The officers warned Jenkins and Parker to ‘stay out of Rankin County and go back to Jackson or `their side´ of the Pearl River,’ court documents say, referencing an area with higher concentrations of Black residents.
Kristen Clarke, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said the trauma ‘is magnified because the misconduct was fueled by racial bias and hatred workers.’
After Dedmon summoned ‘The Goon Squad,’ the officers crept around the ranch-style home to avoid a surveillance camera. They kicked down the carport door and burst inside without a warrant.
Jermicha Fomby, special agent in charge of the FBI Jackson field office, speaks to reporters
U.S. Attorney Darren J. LaMarca, speaks to reporters after six white former law enforcement officers in Mississippi pleaded guilty
Opdyke found a sex toy, which he mounted on a nearby BB gun and forced into Parker’s mouth. Dedmon tried to sexually assault Jenkins with the toy. The officers electrocuted the victims with stun guns, comparing whose weapons were more powerful.
Elward forced Jenkins to his knees for a ‘mock execution,’ intending to fire the gun without a bullet. But it was loaded, and discharged, cutting Jenkins´ tongue, breaking his jaw and exiting through his neck.
As Jenkins bled on the floor, the officers devised a cover story for investigators: Elward brought Jenkins into a side room to stage a drug bust over the phone and said Jenkins reached for a gun when he was released from handcuffs.
Middleton offered to plant an unregistered gun, but Elward said he would use the BB gun. Dedmon volunteered to plant methamphetamine he had received from an informant.
Prosecutors in Rankin County initially went with the officers and charged Jenkins with a felony based on the methamphetamine. They later dropped the charges.
Opdyke put one of Elward’s shell casings in a water bottle and threw it into tall grass nearby. Hartfield removed the hard drive from the home’s surveillance system and later tossed it in a creek.
Afterward, McAlpin and Middleton made a promise: They would kill any of the officers who told the truth about what happened.
The officers kept quiet as pressure mounted from a Justice Department civil rights probe. One of them came forward in June, Sheriff Bailey said.
Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Justice, Kristen Clarke, left, addresses reporters
Bailey on Thursday said he was lied to and only learned the truth when he read unsealed court documents. Deputies McAlpin and Elward, had worked under Bailey for years and had been sued several times for alleged misconduct.
The sheriff said the deputies had violated existing body camera rules by not wearing them when in uniform.
He promised to mandate body cameras be turned on with fewer exceptions and said he was open to more federal oversight. He also called the officers ‘criminals,’ echoing federal prosecutors.
‘Now, they’ll be treated as the criminals they are,’ U.S. Attorney LaMarca said.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk