According to prosecutors, six white former Mississippi law enforcement officers who viciously assaulted two Black individuals earlier this year entered guilty pleas on Thursday to federal civil rights charges.
According to federal prosecutors, the six cops violated the sexual and bodily safety of two shackled Black men for more than two hours on January 24 during an illegal search of a Braxton, Mississippi, house. One of the individuals was shot in the face by the officers as they mock-executed him, seriously hurting him.
According to the Justice Department, the former police failed to render treatment to the victim who was bleeding on the floor and instead congregated outside the house to create a fake cover narrative and take actions to support it, such as placing a gun and destroying surveillance footage.
The police admitted guilt to 16 offenses, including conspiracy to violate civil rights, discharging a gun during a violent crime, and plotting to impede justice, among others. The men will enter guilty pleas to state charges on August 14 as part of their federal plea agreements, according to federal prosecutors.
Prosecutors claimed that the two Black men were sexually assaulted with a pistol and a dildo while being stripped naked, repeatedly shocked with Tasers, and yelled racial obscenities.
The police then attempted to cover up their crimes by attempting to burn the victims’ clothing, and also placed methamphetamine inside the home.
According to a prepared statement from Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, “the defendants in this case tortured and inflicted unspeakable harm on their victims, egregiously violated the civil rights of citizens who they were supposed to protect.”
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Former Rankin County sheriff’s deputies Hunter Elward, 31, Christian Dedmon, 28, Brett McAlpin, 52, Jeffrey Middleton, 46, and Daniel Opdyke, 27, are among the five men who entered guilty pleas. Joshua Hartfield, a 31-year-old former Richland, Mississippi, police officer, was the sixth defendant to enter a plea.
In recent weeks, all of the policemen either lost their jobs or quit.
In February, the Justice Department started looking into the situation.
In June, two Black men named Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker sued Rankin County in a $400 million federal civil rights complaint.
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