Michael Corey Jenkins, right, follows a friend as he enters the federal courthouse in Jackson, Miss., Wednesday, for sentencing on the third of the six former Rankin County law enforcement officers who committed racially motivated, violent torture on him and his friend Eddie Terrell Parker in 2023. The six former law officers pleaded guilty to torturing them.
Rogelio V. Solis/AP
JACKSON, Miss. — A Mississippi federal judge is sentencing additional former law enforcement officers to serve significant prison time in a disturbing brutality case in which the six white lawmen pleaded guilty to federal civil rights charges for torturing two Black men last year.
They were part of a self-styled “Goon Squad” known locally for using violent and aggressive tactics in Rankin County, a suburb of Jackson, Miss.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Tom Lee sentenced former Rankin County sheriff’s deputy Daniel Opdyke to 17.5 years in federal prison for his role in the racist attack on Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker during a no-warrant house raid. The Black men were targeted after a neighbor complained about them staying in a white woman’s home.
Tuesday, Judge Lee sentenced former ex-deputy Hunter Elward to 20 years in prison, and former Lt. Jeffrey Middleton to 17.5 years for their actions in the January 2023 incident.
The white deputies beat, tortured, and sexually assaulted the men for hours. Lee shot Jenkins in the mouth when a mock execution went awry, and the officers also planted drugs and guns to try to coverup their actions with false charges. The white lawmen used stun guns and racial slurs, and told Jenkins and Parker to “go back to their side of the river,” meaning the majority…
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