Prisons and prisoners

Mississippi 'Goon Squad' Police Officers Sentenced to Prison

MAR 22 2024·Updated MAR 23 2024

Story

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The Facts

After pleading guilty to their crimes in August, six White Mississippi police officers on Thursday were sentenced to between 10 and 40 years in prison for committing extrajudicial targeting and torturing of two Black men.
CBS News
After receiving a call about two Black men staying in a house with a White woman in Jan. 2023, the officers broke into the home of Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Parker without a warrant. They then used racial slurs, brandished stun guns, and performed degrading acts on the victims.
The Washington Post
The officers, who called themselves the "Goon Squad," were publicly known in Rankin County, Miss., to use violent tactics. They were also found to have sexually assaulted the victims and shot one of them in the mouth during a mock execution.
NPR
After the incident, the officers — who pleaded guilty to the crimes — destroyed the evidence and attempted to cover it up by planting drugs on the victims, filing false reports against the two men, and pressuring witnesses to maintain the cover-up.
United States Department of Justice
The one officer who was not from Rankin's sheriff's department, Joshua Hartfield, was sentenced to 10 years. Although he didn't stop the crimes, he had no history of using excessive force and was found to have been forced to participate in the cover-up.
FOX13 Memphis
During sentencing, one of the high-ranking former deputies, Brett McAlpin, who was sentenced to 27 years, said his actions were "not how people should treat each other," adding that he's "really sorry" for making "law enforcement look so bad."
CBS News

Sources Split

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The Spin

Narrative A

This is the latest example of law enforcement's longstanding culture of discrimination in Mississippi and throughout the US. These officers should have been fired long ago, but their boss, allowed it to go on. While these individual officers were rightly convicted and sentenced, those at the top should be held accountable for the role they played by turning a blind eye to racism and violence.

The Clarion

Narrative B

Everyone agrees these officers' crimes were horrific, which is why they're going to jail for a long time. But their acts weren't necessarily racist alone. Currently, the country is dealing with a subsection of law enforcement that's over-aggressive and victimizes people of all races — giving law enforcement as a profession a bad name. This is a broadly systemic issue that must be addressed.