Mississippi Deputy Who Shot, Tortured Black Men Gets 20-Year Sentence [View all]

https://www.mississippifreepress.org/40684/rankin-deputy-who-shot-tortured-black-men-gets-20-year-sentence

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“The day of justice has come,” attorney Walker said Monday. “We want the justice system to understand that what we expect is not one system of justice for lay people who are apprehended by the police and taken into custody and another justice system when the officers themselves are the criminals. We want the officers treated with the same air of criminality that they would have if they’d never put a badge on.”

“I relive this every day. Every time I turn on the TV, every time I get on my phone. When I’m on social media, I see it. Everybody’s telling my story,” Eddie Parker told a crowd of reporters gathered at a press conference in Jackson, Miss., on March 18, 2024.

The six former officers, including Hunter Elward, pleaded guilty to state and federal charges last August after illegally raiding the home in Braxton, Miss., on Jan. 24, 2023, following a white neighbor’s complaints to one of the officers about two Black men staying there with a white woman, The Associated Press reported on Aug. 3, 2023.

After breaking into the home, the officers handcuffed, beat and tortured Jenkins and Parker for hours with stun guns, a sex toy and other objects while hurling racist slurs at them. Elward ended the torture session by shoving his gun into Jenkins’ mouth and firing, which “shattered Jenkins’ jaw and severely lacerated his tongue,” a separate civil lawsuit states.

The officers then conspired to cover up the assault, claiming that Jenkins had shot at an officer in the midst of a narcotics investigation. Investigators say Christian Dedmon used meth deputies had confiscated from a prior drug bust and claimed it belonged to Jenkins. Officials dropped all charges against Jenkins and Parker as it became apparent that they had committed no crimes and instead had been victims.

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