From top left, Brett McAlpin, Jeffrey Middleton and Christian Dedmon; from bottom left, Hunter Elward, Daniel Opdyke and Joshua Hartfield, who all pleaded guilty to the sexual assault and kidnapping of two innocent Black men and are serving concurrent state and federal prison sentences.
CNN —
The Rankin County Sheriff’sOffice says itwill conduct a review and analysisafter a Wednesday reportfrom The New York Times and Mississippi Todaydetailedmessagesin an encrypted WhatsApp group chatbetween known “Goon Squad” members and other law enforcement officers, some of whom are still employed by the county.
The “Goon Squad” was the name a group of deputies gave themselves because of their willingness to use excessive force and not report it, federal prosecutors said in court documents.
Some of the messagesdiscuss brutalizing and demeaning suspects, as well as exchanging disturbing crime scene photosand pictures of “rotting corpses,”the report said.
In one exchange from a 2022 domestic violencearrest,then-Deputy Hunter Elward wrote, “Did you Tase him in the face!?”
Fellow Goon Squad member Daniel Opdyke asked if they had shocked theman in the anus.
Another deputy said the suspect would have “gotten more lovings,”seeming to indicatethey held back because of potential witnesses,saying, “All the neighbors were outside watching.”
Chat membersalso“discussed taking nude pictures of a woman they had arrested,” the Times reported.
Another exchange discussesdeputiesgetting “points” for shooting someone.
The “reporting on a WhatsApp group chat is believed to contain information from a former deputy’s private cell phone. Since we cannot compel any employee to turn over his / her private cell phone data, we have requested the full private text thread from the New York Times for use in an internal review and analysis,”an attorney for the Rankin County Sheriff’s Office said ina statement to CNN.
“There are three individuals who remain employed with this Department that were added to this private group chat by a former deputy, and none are alleged to have violated someone’s constitutional rights or committed any criminal act,”the statement said.
Former deputies and Goon Squad membersElward, Opdyke and JeffreyMiddleton all participated in the chat reviewed by the Timesand Mississippi Today. Former Deputy Brett McAlpin is also mentioned in one exchange,according to the report.
McAlpin, Middleton, Elward and Opdyke, along with former Deputy ChristianDedmonand Richland police officer Joshua Hartfield have all pleaded guilty to the sexual assault and kidnapping of two innocent Black men, Michael Jenkins and Eddie Parker, in Rankin Countyin January 2023.They are serving concurrent state and federal prison sentences.
The planning of the assaults on Jenkins and Parker took place on WhatsApp, according to the Department of Justice. It is unclear if the group chatreferenced by the Justice Department is the same asthe oneon which the Times and Mississippi Today reported.
CNN has not obtained the full group chat that was described in the report.
One member of the group chat, who no longer works for the sheriff’sdepartment,called his messages “absolutely all jokes,”in an interview with the New York Times.
Neither the department nor Sheriff BryanBailey“knew of the existence of ‘a shift of officers who called themselves the ‘Goon Squad’ until a bill of information was filed in federal court,” thesheriff’s officestatement said.
The statement continues, “It was also around this time we learned that the five former deputies coordinated their criminal activity via private text messaging, presumably in an attempt to avoid detection by this Department and Sheriff Bailey.”
In March, after the sentencing ofthe former law enforcement officers, CNN spoke with attorney Jeff Reynolds, who represents Opdyke.Reynolds notedOpdykecooperated in the case bysharing the WhatsApp encrypted text messages.
“The explanation by some that they were just‘joking’about torturing people in their what they thought were secret WhatsApp texts rings hollow given the multiple incidents of torture that have now been documented,”Reynoldssaid Wednesday in a statement toCNN about thelatest report.
CNN has reached out to attorneys of the other Goon Squad members alleged to have taken part in the chat for comment but has not received a response.
Malik Shabazz, the lead attorney for Jenkins and Parker, said the“latest revelations regarding the Rankin County Mississippi‘Goon Squad’text messages are not surprising at all.”
“For years, the lawlessness of Rankin County deputies, especially the night shift, had become notorious to residents.Michael Jenkins and Eddie Parker were not shot and tortured in a vacuum.There will be much more to come,”Shabazz said.
“It was just unbelievable,” Angela English,president of the NAACP RankinCountychapter,told CNN, speaking about the report. “What Ihave read is extremely disturbing … we will not give up the fight.”
Mary Asa Lee,communicationsdirector for Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch, told CNN in an email the office does not “comment on open investigations.”
The office of US Attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi Todd Gee also declined to comment on the current investigation.
But earlier this month,Gee,along withmembers of his criminalandcivil rights divisions,held a listening session in Rankin Countyinviting residents to share accounts of police misconduct.
“We know from members of the public who have already called… that there have been a lot of other incidents here in Rankin County over the years,” Gee said. “I can’t emphasize enough to you, please let us know what has happened to you, what has happened to your friends, what has happened to your family.”
CNN’s Ryan Young contributed to this report.
