Sentencing continues Wednesday for white former law enforcement officers in Mississippi who pleaded guilty last year to breaking into a home without a warrant and torturing two Black men with a stun gun, a sex toy and other objects.
FILE - This combination of photos shows, from top left, former Rankin County sheriff's deputies Hunter Elward, Christian Dedmon, Brett McAlpin, Jeffrey Middleton, Daniel Opdyke and former Richland police officer Joshua Hartfield appearing at the Rankin County Circuit Court in Brandon, Miss., Aug. 14, 2023.
In a statement Tuesday, Attorney General Merrick Garland condemned the “heinous attack on citizens they had sworn an oath to protect.”The terror began Jan. 24, 2023, with a racist call for extrajudicial violence when a white person in Rankin County complained to McAlpin that two Black men were staying with a white woman at a house in Braxton. McAlpin told Dedmon, who texted a group of white deputies so willing to use excessive force they called themselves “The Goon Squad.
The majority-white Rankin County is just east of the state capital, Jackson, home to one of the highest percentages of Black residents of any major U.S. city. During a traffic stop that night, Schmidt said Rankin County deputies accused him of possessing stolen property. They handcuffed him, pulled him from his vehicle and beat him until he “started to see spots.” Dedmon fired his gun into the air and forced Schmidt to his knees, the statement said.
Elward and Middlelton were emotional as they apologized in court. Elward’s attorney, Joe Hollomon, said his client first witnessed Rankin County deputies turn a blind eye to misconduct in 2017.
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