It’s been greater than two years since six now-former Braxton, Mississippi, cops entered the house of two Black males, Michael Jenkins and Eddie Parker, with no warrant and brutalized, tortured and sexually assaulted them. Final week, Rankin County officers introduced that they’d settled a lawsuit filed by Jenkins and Parker, who the court docket awarded $2.5 million for the trauma, indignity and bodily, emotional and psychological torture they endured in January 2023.
“This quantity, for Mississippi, is historic,” Trent Walker, the victims’ legal professional, stated in an announcement, in accordance with the Related Press. “I can’t consider an extreme power settlement bigger than this.”
Earlier than we get deeper into the settlement, right here’s a refresher on what the six former officers — Brett McAlpin, Christian Dedmon, Hunter Elward, Jeffrey Middleton, Daniel Opdyke and Joshua Hartfield — did the evening of January 24, 2023.
From AP:
Federal court docket data element how they burst into a house with no warrant, handcuffed Jenkins and Parker, assaulted them with a intercourse toy and beat Parker with a wood and a metallic sword. They poured milk, alcohol and chocolate syrup over their faces after which compelled them to strip bare and bathe collectively to hide the mess.
Then one in every of them put a gun in Jenkins’ mouth and fired.
As Jenkins lay bleeding, they didn’t render medical support. They knew the mission had gone too far and devised a hasty cover-up scheme that included a fictitious narcotics bust, a planted gun and medicines, stolen surveillance footage and threats.
Opdyke discovered a intercourse toy, which he mounted on a BB gun he additionally discovered and compelled into Parker’s mouth. Dedmon tried to sexually assault Jenkins with the toy. The officers repeatedly electrocuted the victims with stun weapons to check whose weapons have been extra highly effective.
Elward compelled Jenkins to his knees for a “mock execution” by firing with no bullet, however the gun discharged. The bullet lacerated Jenkins’ tongue and broke his jaw earlier than exiting his neck.
The officers additionally planted medicine and shell casings within the house to make it appear like a narcotics bust. And, lest we neglect, the entire episode began when Dedmon positioned a name to McAlpin to tell him that two Black males have been residing with a white girl, prompting them to get “The Goon Squad” collectively and do their raging white supremacist work.
All six males pleaded responsible to an array of federal fees, together with conspiracy towards rights, obstruction of justice, deprivation of rights beneath shade of legislation, discharge of a firearm beneath against the law of violence, and conspiracy to impede justice, and so they have been sentenced to between 10 and 40 years in jail. So, now that the Klan-ish cops have been thrown in jail and a court docket settlement has been reached, an legal professional for the Rankin County Sheriff’s Division, Jason Dare, has declared that “that is the ending of the Michael Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker case from the angle” of the division. The issue with Dare’s assertion, in fact, is that, whereas Jenkins and Parker’s case would possibly certainly be concluded, the tradition of policing that fostered the setting the place what occurred to them might occur is probably going nonetheless a problem.
Extra from AP:
An investigation by Mississippi As we speak and The New York Instances uncovered a decades-long reign of terror by almost two dozen Rankin County deputies, however the six officers are the one ones who’ve been charged.
Throughout the officers’ sentencing hearings, former deputies and prosecutors stated the torture of Jenkins and Parker was removed from remoted. In at the very least 9 incidents over 5 years, McAlpin brutalized individuals throughout arrests, prosecutors stated.
So, possibly it’s a bit early for Rankin County officers to begin declaring victory within the battle towards corruption, violence and systemic racism in policing. Clearing a single case doesn’t deliver justice to numerous different victims, and it actually doesn’t maintain the streets secure for Black individuals.
Congratulations to Michael Jenkins and Eddie Parker, although, and will their therapeutic journeys proceed.
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