Sentencing finished for 'Goon Squad', but questions into leadership remain

Sentencing has concluded for 6 former Rankin County law enforcement officers who pled guilty to torturing and beating two Black men in 2023 -- and then trying to cover it up. All face at least a decade behind bars, formally ending federal proceedings in a case of police brutality and corruption that some have labeled as the most serious where a victim wasn't killed.

The attack happened during a no-warrant home raid in January of last year, when officers descended on a home east of Braxton, in rural Rankin County, to respond to a neighbor’s  complaint that two Black men were staying in a neighboring home with a White woman. 

Federal prosecutors say what followed was a nearly two-hour torture session where officers handcuffed Eddie Parker and Michael Corey Jenkins before beating, torturing and sexually assaulthing them in the home. 

The officers then forced Parker and Jenkins to strip and shower together to wash off the evidence of their torture, which included being waterboarded with milk, cooking grease, alcohol and syrup. 

After removing a chambered round from his service weapon and “dry firing” into Michael Corey Jenkins’ mouth in a mock execution, then-Rankin County Sheriff’s Deputy Hunter Elward fired again, this time with a live round. 

The bullet tore through his tongue and exited out of the side of his neck, but Jenkins, a singer and drummer in his now-past life, miraculously survived. 

Standing before Elward in court, his speech made more difficult as a result of the injuries inflicted upon him, Michael Corey Jenkins said that he doesn’t and never will forgive Elward for what he did. 

He can no longer sing or play drums at church because of the headaches he gets, and every time he eats the pain brings him right back to that night. His lawyer, Malik Shabazz, instead read a prepared statement where Jenkins said that he didn’t believe Elward was sorry for what happened, but instead sorry he got caught. 

“And he would still be doing it to other people today if he hadn’t shot me in the mouth by accident,” Jenkins told MPB News.

Elward was the first of the six involved in that January 2023 raid to be sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Tom Lee, who showed little mercy to the former officers during their sentencing, handing out a combined total of 132 years in federal prison. 

Malik Shabazz, personal attorney for both Parker and Jenkins, says the sentences are monumental in the landscape of police accountability in the U.S.

“A new day has come. Yes, hope in Mississippi – a state that was hopeless and believed that racial justice and justice against police brutality and racism could never come,” Shabazz said outside of federal court on March 21. “But now, the hope has come, and we’re sorry that it had to come on the abuse of Michael Jenkins and Eddie Parker, but God is using these men and is using this family.”

Elward, who was also sentenced for his involvement in a similar, but separate federal brutality and sexual assault case from 2022, received 20 years. He appeared visibly shaken and cried throughout his hearing, where his parents spoke before the court as character witnesses. 

Both of his parents said they didn’t know the side of their son that Eddie Parker and Michael Corey Jenkins experienced for nearly two brutal hours in 2023, and that they were of the opinion that it was instead the culture of the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department that molded him into that. 

During his allocution, Elward echoed that sentiment. The former deputy went as far to say that if an officer in the department wanted overtime or to work the night shift, active and willing participation in the self-styled “Goon Squad” was required. 

Testimony connecting the officers’ activities as a means for career advancement in that department only continued as sentencing unfolded.

Former Lieutenant Jeffrey Middleton, who received 17.5 years, was one of two leaders of that group of officers that Eddie Parker, on the first day of sentencing, called a street gang with badges. 

A challenge coin that members of the Goon Squad were given to identify themselves, and put on display by prosecutors in court, showed the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department badge on one side, and on the other a cartoon drawing of three “thugs” in trench coats under the title “Lt. Middleton’s Goon Squad.” 

According to Justice Department prosecutor Erin Chalk, one of the first drafts of that coin displayed a confederate flag and a noose. Both Parker and Jenkins said they were called several racial slurs throughout the night, as well as being told to “go back to their side of the [Pearl] River in Jackson.” 

But Middleton’s attorney Carlos Tanner tried to convince Judge Tom Lee that his client shouldn’t be sentenced at the maximum of his guidelines because he didn’t take part in as much of the physical assault as the other officers. 

Prosecutors demurred, arguing not only did Middleton, as a lieutenant and direct supervisor of two officers involved, have the obligation and standing to end the assault, but also struck Parker with the flat side of a metal sword he found in the home and borrowed another officer’s taser to compare the strength – measured in his victims’ pain – with his own. 

The federal investigation into the raid also discovered that Middleton offered to plant a throwdown gun – or an unregistered gun he’d kept to plant as evidence when needed – to justify the violence, and Jenkins' near-fatal bullet wound. 

Middleton, a veteran of the department and shift leader for the overnight shift, also told his fellow officers he’d have them killed if they spoke up about what happened.

On the second day, the man Eddie Parker and Michael Corey Jenkins called the Devil, Christian Dedmon, received 40 years – by far the most of all the officers. 

U.S. District Judge Tom Lee told the former narcotics detective that he committed the most egregious, shocking and brutal acts imaginable that night, which included the sexual assault of both men with a dildo he discovered in the home. 

Dedmon’s sentence also reflects his charges in the similar brutality case involving Hunter Elward from 2022. According to prosecutors and Elward, Dedmon placed that victim in handcuffs on the side of Interstate 20 before beating him and sexually assaulting him. 

What followed were two mock executions similar to the one that nearly killed Michael Corey Jenkins in 2023, but instead Dedmon fired two live rounds next to Aaron Schmidt’s head while he was hooded. 

Federal prosecutors say that on that night in January 2023, Dedmon received a call from former chief investigator Brett McAlpin. Then the fourth-highest ranking officer in the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department, McAlpin organized the raid after receiving a phone call from a neighbor complaining that they saw Black men staying with a white woman. 

He then called Dedmon, telling him to plan a “mission” to raid the home. Dedmon, a 28 year old narcotics detective at the time, then created a text group chat with the other officers to plan the raid. He told them from which direction to approach the house, where to avoid surveillance cameras, and to avoid any “bad mugshots”. 

During his sentencing, Dedmon again told Judge Tom Lee that the culture of the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department required violent behavior and membership on the “Goon Squad” to advance. 

Dedmon also said the only reason that he, a 27 year old at the time, was promoted to narcotics detective in a county the size of Rankin was because of his enthusiastic embrace of the group’s tactics of wanton violence and cover ups. 

Former chief investigator of the Rankin County Sheriff's Department Brett McAlpin was sentenced to 27 years. According to federal prosecutors, McAlpin arrived at the raid in January 2023 in shorts and a T-shirt from his own home just down the street. 

In court, victims Eddie Parker and Michael Jenkins said that during the raid, McAlpin did not take part in the physical violence, but instead as the senior officer instructed the others in what to do while he watched. 

Both Parker and Jenkins said they could tell it wasn't his first time doing this, and that he reminded them of a Mob boss in the way he ordered the others as he paced around the living room. 

Co-counsel Trent Walker, an attorney based in Jackson, says he’s pleased to see the wheels of justice are beginning to spin in Mississippi – and especially in Rankin County. 

“For too long, the Rankin County Sheriff's Department has acted as a machine that has ground people up and spit them out, many times unjustly,” Walker said. “And just now, one of the chief grinders in that machine, Brett McAlpin, finally got what was coming to him. Trust and believe me when I say it is long overdue.”

Former deputy Daniel Opdike received a 17.5 year sentence, and former Richland Police officer Joshua Hartfield received a ten year sentence. 

Judge Tom Lee said Hartfield was still culpable, but less so than the others involved, because he mostly took part in the cover-up rather than the beating, torture and sexual assault.

All six former officers are also scheduled to be sentenced on coinciding state charges later this year.