Mississippi’s ‘Goon Squad’ sentenced

Jeffrey Middleton is seen during his sentencing hearing on Wednesday.

The second of six former Mississippi law enforcement officers who pleaded guilty to charges stemming from the January 2023 torture and abuse of two Black men was sentenced in state court on Wednesday to 20 years in prison.

The hearing is ongoing.    

The six White officers – Rankin County Sheriff’s deputies Hunter Elward, Brett McAlpin, Christian Dedmon, Daniel Opdyke, Jeffrey Middleton, and former Richland Police Department officer Joshua Hartfield – received federal prison sentences last month ranging from 10 to 40 years.  

On Wednesday, Jeffrey Middleton was sentenced to 20 years to run concurrently with his federal sentence. 

The first of six former Mississippi law enforcement officers who pleaded guilty to charges stemming from the January 2023 torture and abuse of two Black men was sentenced in state court on Wednesday to 20 years in prison. The hearing is ongoing. 

The six White officers — Rankin County Sheriff’s deputies Hunter Elward, Brett McAlpin, Christian Dedmon, Daniel Opdyke, Jeffrey Middleton, and former Richland Police Department officer Joshua Hartfield – received federal prison sentences last month ranging from 10 to 40 years. 

On Wednesday, Brett McAlpin was sentenced to 20 years to run concurrently with his federal sentence.

Attorney Malik Shabazz read aloud a victim impact statement from Eddie Parker, who was present in the courtroom but did not approach the stand.

“My life was not perfect, but it was mine. I doubt I will ever be able to experience it again. I wish I didn’t have to experience the memory of this torture session, but I can’t do that either. I can’t erase my memories but I will struggle to live on. They should be given what they gave me and Michael Jenkins, which is no mercy. I pray for the maximum sentence,” he added.

Family members of the defendants were present in the courtroom during the sentencing and some could be seen crying.

Michael Corey Jenkins, right, and Eddie Terrell Parker, center, sit in a Rankin County courtroom on Wednesday in Brandon, Mississippi.

Malik Shabazz, the attorney for victim Michael Jenkins, read out the victim’s impact statement ahead of the sentencing of the six White former Mississippi officers’ sentencing.

“Your honor, please take these crimes by the goon squad seriously,” Jenkins said in the statement. “Your honor, it is true that me and Eddie, in this event were called racist names.”

January 24, 2023, was the worst day of his life, he said.

He detailed his torture, and described what it has meant.

“They tried to take my manhood from me. They did some unimaginable things to me and the effects of which will last in my life forever. All the things I used to do in my life have been affected. I am a musician and a signer, and now because of the gunshot wound that shattered my jaw, I can no longer do what I love, and that’s sing,” he added.

Jenkins said he wakes up at night covered in sweat due to nightmares about what happened, and loud noises, police lights and sirens give him anxiety.

“I’m broken inside, and I don’t think I will ever be the person I was,” he continued.

The six former Mississippi law enforcement officers are seen in court during their state sentencing hearing on Wednesday.

Six White former Mississippi law enforcement officers are set to be sentenced Wednesday on state charges tied to the abuse of Eddie Parker and Michael Jenkins. They have now entered the courtroom.

Five former Rankin County Sheriff’s deputies will be sentenced today:

Former Richland Police Department officer Joshua Hartfield will also be sentenced.

They pleaded guilty in August to state and federal charges.

The state sentencing hearing of six White former Mississippi law enforcement officers who pleaded guilty to charges stemming from the torture and abuse of two Black men has started.

This court hearing is well-attended, with the benches behind the victims nearly full. Some family members of the defendants are on the left side of the courtroom.

Remember: They have already been handed long sentences in federal court.

CNN’s Devon Sayers contributed reporting to this post. 

Michael Corey Jenkins, who along with Eddie Terrell Parker had been victims of torture by then six Mississippi Rankin County law officers in 2023, shows the scar left from having a gun fired off in his mouth by one of the now former lawmen, while outside the federal courthouse in Jackson, Mississippi, on March 19.

Six White former Mississippi law enforcement officers are about to be sentenced on state charges after pleading guilty in connection to the torture and abuse of two Black men – Eddie Parker and Michael Jenkins — on January 24, 2023, in Braxton, Mississippi, just southeast of Jackson.

The six officers went to the residence after a White neighbor reported that several Black men were staying at a White woman’s home and reported seeing suspicious behavior — but in the end the officers found no crime, prosecutors said.

The Mississippi Attorney General’s Office in August brought state charges of conspiracy to commit obstruction of justice against each of the officers. Additionally, Dedmon was charged with home invasion and Elward was charged with home invasion and aggravated assault. McAlpin, Middleton, Opdyke and Hartfield each faced an additional charge of first-degree obstruction of justice, the office said.

The former officers pleaded guilty to federal charges of conspiracy against rights, deprivation of rights under color of law, conspiracy to obstruct justice, and obstruction of justice, according to court records. Elward faced the most serious of federal charges stemming from the January incident – discharge of a firearm during a crime of violence.

The deputies, “in their repeated use of racial slurs in the course of their violent acts, were oppressive and hateful against their African-American victims,” the lawsuit says. “Defendants were motivated on the basis of race and the color of the skin of the persons they assaulted.”

In March, the Rankin County NAACP branch pushed the court in writing to enact harsh punishments in the “Goon Squad” case. Severe consequences, the civil rights group’s president suggested, could steer progress toward justice.

“We can’t erase Mississippi’s past,” Angela English, branch president, told CNN before the first federal sentence was handed down. “But we can move forward today and set a precedent that has never been set before.”

And the fallout may not be over.

The local NAACP chapter called for a pattern-or-practice investigation of policing in Rankin County. The US Justice Department continues to ask the public to share information about allegations of abuse by its sheriff’s office via a toll-free number. And some here are working to oust the sheriff himself, who apologized and said he was “ashamed” after his deputies pleaded guilty in the torture ordeal.

At least three of the defendants – then-deputies Hunter Elward, Jeffrey Middleton and Daniel Opdyke – were part of a group of deputies that called themselves the “Goon Squad” because of their willingness to use excessive force and not report it, federal prosecutors said in court documents.

A federal court sentenced the highest-ranking officer of this squad – Brett McAlpin – to more than 27 years in prison.

Federal prosecutors described McAlpin, a former deputy with the Rankin County Sheriff’s Office, as “the one calling the shots” and as a “mafia don” among the rogue cops who tortured citizens – acts associated with another time in the state of Mississippi.

The six Mississippi officers who will be sentenced on state charges today have already received long federal sentences.

Here’s what they are:

All six have also pleaded guilty to state charges.