Six former Mississippi law enforcement officers have pleaded guilty in federal court to torturing two Black men, prosecutors announced.
Six white former officers in Mississippi have pleaded guilty to civil rights abuses committed while conducting an illegal raid on a home where two Black men were tortured, beaten, repeatedly shocked with Tasers and sexually assaulted, prosecutors said.
Five men were deputies with the Rankin County Sheriff's Office. The other was an officer with the Richland Police Department. Both agencies are near Jackson, the state capital.
All six were fired or reassigned after Michael Jenkins and Eddie Terrell filed a $400 million federal civil suit alleging the white men broke down their doors without a warrant and beat them, waterboarded them, stripped them naked, assaulted them with a dildo and ultimately shot one of them in the mouth.
The violence never stopped for nearly two hours, the men said. While they were being attacked, the white officers repeatedly called them "monkeys" and "n*****s," the Black men said.
A U.S. Justice Department Civil Rights investigation of those allegations were ultimately corroborated, authorities said.
The deputies were identified as Hunter Elward, 31, Christian Dedmon, 28, Brett McAlpin, 52, Jeffrey Middleton, 46 and Daniel Opdyke, 27. The former Richland Police Officer was named as Joshua Hartfield, 31.
"The defendants in this case tortured and inflicted unspeakable harm on their victims (and) egregiously violated the civil rights of citizens who they were supposed to protect," said U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland.
Three of the white officers referred to themselves as members of the "Goon Squad" for their “willingness to use excessive force and not to report it,” according to the federal complaint.
The six white men appeared in federal court Thursday and pleaded guilty to 16 federal felony counts, including civil rights conspiracy, discharge of a firearm during a crime of violence, deprivation of rights under color of law, conspiracy to obstruct justice and obstruction of justice.
The beatings occurred in January, when one of the officers received a report from his neighbor about "suspicious behavior" at a home where Black men were staying, the federal complaint said.
"Are y’all available for a mission?” one of the deputies texted to the others, according to the complaint.
That night, the men allegedly raided the house without a warrant, breaking down a back door and a carport entrance, prosecutors said.
The deputies were on duty, the police officer was off duty, authorities said.
For nearly two hours, the two Black men endured "a horrific and stark example of violent police misconduct which has no place in our society today," said federal prosecutor Kristen Clarke at a news conference Thursday.
The state has also filed charges against the six men.
Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch also announced Thursday her office has charged the men with aggravated assault, home invasion, obstruction of justice and conspiracy to commit obstruction of justice.
"This abuse of power will not be tolerated," Fitch said. The men are expected to plead guilty to those charges on Aug. 14, federal prosecutors said
They six officers poured milk, alcohol and chocolate syrup over the faces of the two Black men, and Elward shoved a gun inside Jenkins' mouth and pulled the trigger, mangling his tongue and jaw, prosecutors said.
The officers planted drugs on Jenkins to cover up their crimes, the government said.
Rankin County Sheriff Bryan Bailey said he was "ashamed" of his former deputies after they pleaded guilty Thursday.
“These guys were so far past any boundary. It is unbelievable what they did,” Bailey told reporters. “This is a bunch of criminals that did a home invasion," the sheriff said.
“All of the former deputies lied to me, that night of this incident,” the sheriff said. “I am sick to my stomach. I have tried to build a reputation, tried to have a safe county. They have robbed me of all of this, by the actions of these few.
“This is a perfect example of why people don’t trust the police,” Bailey said. “Never in my life did I think this would happen in this department.”
Dedmon, Elward and Opdyke also pleaded guilty to three federal felony counts in connection to a separate incident that occurred on Dec. 4. Prosecutors said Dedmon beat a white man, shocked him with a Taser and fired a gun near his head to force a confession, while Elward and Opdyke did nothing to stop the violence.
The six men will be sentenced in November, according to U.S. District Judge Tom Lee. The face maximum sentences ranging from 80 to 120 years, and millions of dollars in fines.
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