INDEPENDENT
Six former Mississippi police officers – who are white – pleaded guilty to 16 felonies “stemming from the torture and physical abuse” of two Black men.
Among the felonies are civil rights conspiracy, deprivation of rights under color of law, discharge of a firearm during a crime of violence, and conspiracy to obstruct justice and obstruction of justice, according to the Department of Justice. The ex-officers pleaded guilty to all 16 charges against them.
Five of the defendants are from Rankin County Sheriff’s Office (RCSO), Chief Investigator Brett McAlpin, Narcotics Investigator Christian Dedmon, Lieutenant Jeffrey Middleton, Deputy Hunter Elward, and Deputy Daniel Opdyke, while one is from the Richland Police Department, Narcotics Investigator Joshua Hartfield.
According to the Department of Justice’s release, the officers admitted kicking in a door and entering a home belonging to two Black men – Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker on 24 January – without a warrant.
Mr Jenkins and Mr Parker were handcuffed and arrested – without probable cause to believe they had committed any crime. The officers “called them racial slurs, and warned them to stay out of Rankin County,” according to the release.
The officers “punched and kicked the men, tased them 17 times, forced them to ingest liquids, and assaulted them with a dildo.” Rankin County Narcotics Investigator Christian Dedmon fired his gun twice throughout the tortuous encounter to intimidate the men.
At one point, Rankin County Deputy Elward removed a bullet from the chamber of his gun and forced the gun into Mr Jenkins’ mouth and pulled the trigger, the release stated. The unloaded gun didn’t fire, but it did click. “Intending to dry-fire a second time,” Elward pulled the trigger, and this time the gun discharged. The bullet “lacerated” the man’s tongue and broke his jaw.
The officers did not provide medical aid to the man bleeding on the floor – even after a bullet just exited from his neck. Instead, the officers convened outside the house to concoct a “false cover story and took steps to corroborate it.”
They planned, according to the release, to plant the gun on Jenkins, to destroy the surveillance footage, the shell casings and the taser cartridges. Then they would provide fake drug evidence to the crime lab and file a false report, thus charging the man with crimes he did not commit.
Not only did the fake cover story involve the officers making false statements to investigators, but they were game to pressure witnesses to stick to the cover story.
