Six Mississippi Police Officers Plead Guilty To Racist Assault

Six former Mississipi police Department officers on Thursday pleaded guilty to racially assaulting two black men with one of the victims shot in the mouth. 

The officers, Joshua Hartfield, an off duty Richmond police officer, Christian Dedmon, Hunter Elward, Brett McAlpin, Jeffrey Middleton and Daniel Opdyke, all white, also known as the ‘Goon Squad’, allegedly after a neighbour aomplained that they two men were with a white man woman, owner of the house. One of the victims is a long time friend who was helping to care for the white woman, owner of the house. 

However, the officers are said to have entered the house without any warrant on January 24 and assaulted the two Black men with sex toys, stun guns and other items over a 90-minute duration. 

According to court documents, the officers went on a 'mock execution' which went bad along the line, thereby conspiring to plant and tamper with evidence rather than provide medical assistant to the wounded man.  

Following the assault, the Justice Department launched its civil rights probe in February, with Mississipi’s attorney general’s office announcing Thursday that it filed charges, including assault, conspiracy and obstruction of justice against the six former policemen.

Charges against the officers also linked them to at least four violent encounters with Black men since 2019. the incidents, according to investigations, left two of the victims dead, one with permanent injuries.

Dedmon, Elward and Opdyke pleaded guilty to three federal felony charges in a separate December 4 incident during which Dedmon repeatedly beat a white man, tasered and fired a gun near his head to force a confession. Elward and Opdyke failed to intervene. 

"The defendants in this case tortured and inflicted unspeakable harm on their victims...egregiously violated the rights of citizens they were supposed to protect," US Attorney General, Merrick Garland, said. 

The officers allegedly employed racial slurs against the two men, warning them to stay out of Rankin County and go back to Jackson or ‘their side’ of the Pearl River, areas with higher concntration of Black residents.

Elward reportedly shoved a gun into Jenkins’ and fired a shot, with the bullet lacerating the victim’s tongue, breaking his jaw and exiting via his neck.

In addition to throwing eggs on the victims’ handcuffs and forcing them to lie on their backs while pouring milk, alcoholand chocolate syrup down their mouths, the officers were also alleged to have stripped the two men naked and have them take a shower to remove evidences.

The officers also allegedly passed electrical current through the victims by repeatedly using stun guns to know which, between the the police and sheriff departments’ weapons were more powerful, with court document indicating that one of the officers, Middleton, offered to plant an unregistered firearm at the scene. 

Opdyke and Dedmon were identified as the two officers who assaulted the victims with sex toy.

The victims, Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terle Parker, have filed a federal law suit against Rankin County. They are demanding $400m in damages.