Now That Six ‘Goon Squad’ Deputies Are Going To Jail For Torturing Two Black Men, The DOJ Says It’s Time To Investigate Their Employer

One of the most horrific acts of police brutality has now resulted in two DOJ investigations. The first concerned the torture of Michael Jenkins and Eddie Parker by six white deputies who referred to themselves as the “Goon Squad” for their willingness to break rules and violate rights.

The first investigation involved the incident itself to determine whether or the DOJ would be joining the prosecution of the Rankin County (MS) deputies who engaged in the reprehensible, hours-long torture of two black men. The description of this prolonged brutality can still turn stomachs, even when recounted in the dry wording used in charging documents.

During a search of the house, OPDYKE kicked in the padlocked door to the front bedroom. Inside, he found a white-flesh-toned dildo and a BB gun. OPDYKE mounted the dildo on the end of the BB gun and brought the dildo to the living room, where M.J. and E.P. were handcuffed and seated on the couch. OPDYKE forced the dildo into the mouth of E.P., and attempted to force the dildo into the mouth of M.J.

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DEDMON forced M.J. and E.P. onto their knees with their backs to DEDMON, and DEDMON threatened to anally rape M.J. and E.P. with the dildo. DEDMON grabbed the back of M.J.’s pants and moved the dildo toward M.J.’s backside, but DEDMON stopped when he noticed that M.J. had defecated himself.

[…]

M.J. and E.P., still handcuffed, were forced onto their backs on the floor of the living room. ELWARD held them down, and DEDMON poured milk, alcohol, and chocolate syrup on their faces and into their mouths, forcing M.J. and E.P. to involuntarily ingest [these fluids]; and DEDMON poured cooking grease on E.P.’s head.

On top of that, the men were tased 17 times and Jenkins was shot in the mouth. The deputies wrapped up the night by generating bogus GPS data, throwing the house’s security camera hard drive into a nearby lake, concocting a story about a controlled drug buy gone wrong, and destroyed whatever other physical evidence they thought might tie them to the scene.

With six deputies heading to jail, the sheriff who ignored the Goon Squad and their tactics for years promised to root out any remaining bad apples from his barrel. Of course, Sheriff Bryan Bailey is hardly the man for the job. He has his own ethical issues (to put it lightly), ranging from abusing the subpoena process to secure his girlfriend’s phone records to performing some very questionable dismissals of DUI cases.

A man like that can’t be trusted to clean up his own backyard. Fortunately, the DOJ has returned to the scene to announce its own investigation of the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department. It may have already looked into the six officers who are now incarcerated, but something as horrible as this doesn’t form in a vacuum. It happens because more minor violations and acts of violence were ignored repeatedly, emboldening the Goon Squad to the point of engaging in the literal torture of two black men.

The Justice Department will investigate whether the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department has engaged in a pattern or practice of excessive force and unlawful stops, searches and arrests, and whether it has used racially discriminatory policing practices, according to Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke.

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“The concerns about the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department did not end with the demise of the Goon Squad,” Clarke said Thursday.

The Justice Department has received information about other troubling incidents, including deputies overusing stun guns, entering homes unlawfully, using “shocking racial slurs” and employing “dangerous, cruel tactics to assault people in their custody,” Clarke said.

There’s no need to use the word “whether.” The Rankin County Sheriff’s Department is definitely “engaged in a pattern or practice of excessive force” and other rights violations. That much was made clear by these deputies’ actions, which are a trailing indicator of patterns of rights violations. The only question the DOJ’s investigation will answer is just how bad things are. The other certainty is that some high-profile resignations will be filed in the very near future as department supervisors and county officials hurriedly try to put some time and distance between them and this miserable excuse for a law enforcement agency they helped cultivate.