JACKSON, Miss. — A judge sentenced two former Mississippi sheriff’s deputies from a self-described “Goon Squad” to federal prison Thursday for the torture and abuse of two Black men in a racist attack.
Brett Morris McAlpin, 53, was ordered to serve 327 months, which is more than 27 years.
And Joshua Hartfield, 32, the final former deputy to be sentenced, was ordered to serve 121 months, or about 10 years.
McAlpin and Hartfield are two of the six former Rankin County sheriff’s deputies who admitted to subjecting two Black men, Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker, to acts of racist torture.
“The depravity of the crimes committed by these defendants cannot be overstated, and they will now spend between 10 and 40 years in prison for their heinous attack on citizens they had sworn to protect,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement Thursday.
McAlpin pleaded guilty to multiple charges, including conspiracy against rights, obstructions of justice, deprivation of rights under color of law and conspiracy to obstruct justice.
McAlpin was brought into the courtroom of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi wearing handcuffs and leg shackles, offering a nod to his family members in attendance.
In January 2023, McAlpin received a call from a white person who complained that Jenkins and Parker were residing with a white woman at a house in Braxton, Mississippi.
McAlpin then texted a group that self-described as “The Goon Squad” — a group that the Justice Department said were known “for using excessive force and not reporting it.”
The “Goon Squad” consisted of McAlpin, Hartfield, Christian Dedmon, 29, Jeffrey Middleton, 46, Hunter Elward, 31, and Daniel Opdyke, 28.
The group then went to the home without a warrant, The Associated Press reported, and assaulted the two Black men with stun guns, forced them to ingest liquids, punched and kicked them and called them racial slurs.
The Justice Department said the two men…
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