'Worst Example of a Police Officer' Gets 40 Years

Two more former Mississippi sheriff's deputies were sentenced Wednesday for their parts in the racist torture of two Black men by a group of white officers who called themselves the "Goon Squad." Christian Dedmon, 29, received 40 years in federal prison, the AP reports. At the federal courthouse in Jackson, he did not look at the victims as he apologized and said he'd never forgive himself for the pain he caused.

• All six former officers charged in the case pleaded guilty last year, admitting that they subjected Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker to numerous acts of racist torture in January 2023 after a neighbor complained the men were staying in a home with a white woman. Prosecutors said Dedmon slapped the men with a sex toy and threatened to brutalize them with it.
• US District Judge Tom Lee said Wednesday that Dedmon carried out the most "shocking, brutal and cruel attacks imaginable" against Jenkins and Parker and against a white man during a traffic stop weeks earlier.

• Jenkins, who was shot in the mouth and still has trouble speaking due to his injuries, said in a statement read by his lawyer that Dedmon's actions were the most depraved of any of those who attacked him. "Deputy Dedmon is the worst example of a police officer in the United States," Jenkins said. "Deputy Dedmon was the most aggressive, sickest, and the most wicked."
• On Tuesday, Lee gave a 20-year prison sentence to Hunter Elward, 31, and a 17.5-year sentence to Middleton, 46, calling their actions "egregious and despicable." They, like Opdyke and Dedmon, worked as Rankin County sheriff's deputies during the attack.
• Hours before Dedmon's sentencing, former officer Daniel Opdyke, 28, cried profusely as he spoke before the judge announced his sentence of 17.5 years. Turning to look at the two victims, Opdyke said isolation behind bars has given him time to reflect on "how I transformed into the monster I became that night."
• Another former deputy, Brett McAlpin, 53, and a former Richland police officer, Joshua Hartfield, 32, are set for sentencing Thursday.
• Dedmon, like Opdyke and Elward, also pleaded guilty to taking part in an assault on a white man during a traffic stop Dec. 4, 2022—weeks before Jenkins and Parker were tortured. Prosecutors said Elward and Opdyke failed to intervene as Dedmon punched and kicked Alan Schmidt, used a Taser on him, fired his gun into the air to threaten him, and then sexually assaulted him.
• WLBT reports that Dedmon is a first cousin of Deryl Dedmon, who was arrested at 18 for the murder of a Black man in Jackson and is serving a 50-year sentence under a federal hate crime law.

(More Mississippi stories.)