Former Mississippi deputy gets more than 27 years in prison for racist torture of 2 Black men
A fifth former sheriff’s deputy in Mississippi has been sentenced for his part in torturing two Black men
JACKSON, Miss. — A fifth former sheriff’s deputy in Mississippi was sentenced Thursday to more than 27 years in prison for breaking into a home with a group of law enforcement officers as they tortured two Black men, an act the judge called “egregious and despicable.”
Former deputy Brett McAlpin, 53, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Tom Lee after pleading guilty to the attack, which involved beatings, repeated uses of stun guns and assaults with a sex toy before one of the victims was shot in the mouth. The sixth and final member of the group, 32-year-old former Richland police officer Joshua Hartfield is set to be sentenced Thursday afternoon.
The judge sentenced Christian Dedmon, 29, to 40 years and Daniel Opdyke, 28, to 17.5 years on Wednesday. He gave nearly 20 years to Hunter Elward, 31, and 17.5 years to Jeffrey Middleton, 46, on Tuesday. All but Hartfield served with the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department outside Mississippi’s capital city, where some called themselves “The Goon Squad.”
In March 2023, months before federal prosecutors announced charges in August, an investigation by The Associated Press linked some of the deputies to at least four violent encounters with Black men since 2019 that left two dead and another with lasting injuries.
The officers invented false charges against the victims, planting a gun and illegal drugs at the scene of their crime, and stuck to their cover story for months until finally admitting that they tortured Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker. Elward admitted to shoving a gun into Jenkins’ mouth and firing it in what federal prosecutors said was meant to be
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