DOJ investigates Mississippi sheriff’s office following ‘Goon Squad’ torture case

The Justice Department has opened a civil rights investigation into policing in Rankin County, Miss., where six white former law enforcement officers — some of whom called themselves the “Goon Squad” — were convicted of torturing two Black men last year during a no-warrant house raid.

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement Thursday that the investigation will examine whether the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department has a pattern or practice of “systematically violat[ing] people’s constitutional rights through excessive use of force; unlawful stops, searches, and arrests; and discriminatory policing.”

The investigation will also examine whether sheriff’s officers “have overused tasers, entered homes unlawfully, used racial slurs, and deployed dangerous, cruel tactics to assault people in their custody.”

Rankin County is a suburb east of the state’s capital, Jackson. In January 2023, five sheriff’s deputies and an off-duty police officer went to a white woman’s home after her white neighbor reported seeing multiple Black men at her property.

When the officers arrived, they tortured Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker for nearly two hours during a warrantless home raid. The abuse included beating them, tasing them, and violating them with a sex toy — all the while spewing racial slurs. The assault only ended after one of the officers shot Jenkins in the mouth. The officers then tried to cover up their crimes by planting drugs and a gun at the scene and destroying evidence, Mississippi Public Broadcasting previously reported.

According to court documents, Parker was a childhood friend of the woman at the home. He was helping take care of her because she had been paralyzed since she was a teen.

Officers Brett McAlpin, Jeffrey Middleton, Daniel Opdyke, Christian Dedmon, Joshua Hartfield and Hunter Elward, who shot Jenkins, were eventually arrested, charged in federal and state court and held without bail. The former officers all received lengthy prison sentences ranging from 10 to 45 years.

The warrantless raid and torture inflicted by officers sent shockwaves across the country. It was later revealed that three of the former officers — Elward, Middleton and Opdyke — called themselves members of the “Goon Squad” because of their willingness to use excessive force and then cover it up, according to court documents.

Since the attack, the Justice Department received more complaints regarding other instances involving the Rankin deputies. These complaints include allegations of excessive use of tasers, unlawful entry into homes unlawfully, hurling racial slurs, and deploying dangerous, cruel tactics to assault people in their custody, according to U.S. Assistant Attorney General General Kristen Clarke.

The civil investigation is separate and independent from the federal criminal civil rights prosecutions of the officers. It will review the policies, training and supervision inside the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department, as well as hear from community members and officers about their perspectives.

The Justice Department said Rankin County officials pledged to cooperate with the investigation.