Latest / Murder Files Unsealed / Six ex-Mississippi ‘Goon Squad’ officers get 15 to 40 years for torture of Black men

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Six ex-Mississippi ‘Goon Squad’ officers get 15 to 40 years for torture of Black men · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Imagine for a moment like wearing a name tag to
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: work that just explicitly advertises your willingness to break the law.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: Right. Like nobody would actually do that.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Oh, exactly. I mean, you wouldn't do it. A bank
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: teller doesn't walk into the branch wearing a badge that says,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: you know, the embezzler.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah. That's a quick way to get fired.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Or like an airline pilot. Right. They don't get on
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: the intercom and announce that they are the safety protocol violator.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it just completely defies every basic instinct of self-preservation
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: in any professional environment.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: It really does. But yet, in Rankin County, Mississippi, a
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: group of sworn law enforcement officers actually openly referred to
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: themselves as the Goon Squad.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: Which is just staggering.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: It is. And this wasn't some whispered shameful secret kept
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: strictly off the books either. This was a brand.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: A literal brand, yeah.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, a brand built entirely on their willingness to use
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: excessive force... and their coordinated commitment to basically hide it
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: from the world. So today for this deep dive, we're
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: looking at how a system allows a moniker like that
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: to not just survive, but to operate with absolute impunity.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: Right up until it just destroys everything in its path.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Okay, so let's unpack this because the juxtaposition here
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: is just jarring. We have officers sworn to uphold the law,
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: actively organizing around breaking it.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, the whole concept of a specialized unit
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: actually adopting a moniker based on brutality, it just fundamentally
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: shatters that foundational agreement, right? The one between a community
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: and its police force.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the social contract, basically.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Because law enforcement, they are granted the state's monopoly
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: on violence. They're given the authority to detain people to
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: use force and to strip citizens of their liberty. But
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: that immense power is entirely conditionally based on strict adherence
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: to the law. So when a group of officers forms
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: a subculture dedicated to circumventing those laws, they basically cease
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: to be a protective force and effectively become an occupying one.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: An occupying force. It's a terrifying way to put it,
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: but it's accurate.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: We are really examining an extreme manifestation of institutional rot here.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: It's an ecosystem where the mechanisms designed to protect citizens
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: were just entirely inverted.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: And we are going to trace the anatomy of that
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: rot today. We are relying entirely on on a highly
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: detailed comprehensive report from ABC7 New York.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: And this report covers the sentencing phase of six former
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: law enforcement officers who systematically tortured two black men, Michael
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: Jenkins and Eddie Parker.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's heavily detailed.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: It is. So our mission for this deep dive is
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: to unpack the entire timeline of this chilling event for you.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: We're going to look at the initial catalyst, the agonizing
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: 90 minutes inside that house. the calculated cover-up that followed,
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: and the eventual reckoning in a federal courtroom.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: Because it's really a profound look at the abuse of
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: power under the color of law.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: It really is. And it's important to set some parameters
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: before we dive in.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, because it is critical that we establish how
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: we are analyzing this material. The details we are about
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: to discuss are inherently graphic, they're deeply disturbing, and they
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: involve racially motivated violence.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: Yes, listener discretion is definitely advised here.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: Right. And our approach today is to impartially examine the
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: established facts, the guilty pleas that were entered in federal court,
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: and the courtroom statements exactly as they were reported in
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: the source material.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: We aren't taking political sides here at all.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: No, not at all. We are looking strictly at what
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: the United States legal system has formally recorded, prosecuted, and
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: penalized based on the officer's own admissions under oath.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Exactly. So let's start at the very beginning because the
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: catalyst for this entire nightmare is just a profound study
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: in how everyday civilian bias can be weaponized.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it really is.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: According to the reporting, this didn't start with like a
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: high-speed chase or a violent crime in progress. It started
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: with a phone call.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: A single phone call. Yeah.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: A white neighbor in Rankin County contacted law enforcement to
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: report what they deemed suspicious activity.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: And we really need to look at what that suspicious
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: activity actually was.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: Right, because the specifics of that suspicious activity are literally
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: exactly this. The neighbor noted that two black men, Michael
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Jenkins and Eddie Parker, were staying with a white woman
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: in her home. That is the spark that ignited this
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: entire chain of events.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: Unpacking that initial phone call really reveals the dangerous intersection
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: between community prejudice and militarized policing.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: How so?
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: Well, the caller is observing a demographic reality, right? Two
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: black men residing in a home with a white woman.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: And they're interpreting it as an actionable threat requiring police intervention.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Right. Just their sheer presence.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And the legal system operates on concepts like reasonable
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: suspicion and probable cause.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: Which requires actual evidence of a crime.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: Right. It requires specific articulable facts that a crime is
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: being committed. But here, the mere presence of these men
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: was basically treated as the offense itself.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: Which is just wild because when that call comes in,
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: you would expect... a basic filtering process at the dispatch
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: or patrol level.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: You'd hope so, yeah.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: Like an officer evaluates the information and determines if a
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: crime is actually being alleged. But that didn't happen here
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: at all.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: No, it bypassed all of that.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: Former Rankin County Sheriff's Deputy Brett McAlpin gets wind of
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: this complaint. And instead of dismissing it as a non-issue
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: or even just, you know, driving by the house to
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: check it out, he elevates it.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: He essentially escalates a non-issue.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: Right. He contacts another deputy, Christian Dedman, and asks him
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: to investigate. And Dedman doesn't approach this like a standard
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: wellness check.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: Not even close.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: He activates a specific network. He summons a group of
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: shift officers, the goon squad.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: And the activation of that squad is where the situation
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: shifts from a biased civilian complaint into a coordinated extrajudicial operation.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: Because the Department of Justice charging documents are incredibly specific
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: about why this group was called the goon squad.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: The name itself tells the story.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: It does. They earn this name because of their willingness
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: to use excessive force and not report it. And what's
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: fascinating here is we really have to look closely at
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: the dual nature of that definition.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: The violence and the silence. Exactly.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: The violence is only half of the equation. The phrase
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: and not report it is the structural foundation that actually
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: allowed the violence to exist.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: See, that's the part that really stalls my brain. If
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: we go back to that bank teller analogy, branding yourself
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: as the goon squad. based on a mutual agreement to
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: commit violence and falsify records, seems like a massive vulnerability.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: It sounds like an incredible risk to take.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: Right. I mean, how does a faction like this operate
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: within a sheriff's department? They are driving March vehicles. They
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: are wearing government-issued uniforms. They are using department radios.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: They're doing this all on the taxpayer's dime.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: Exactly. And you don't get a nickname the very first
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: time you cross the line. A nickname implies a recognizable
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: repeated pattern of behavior.
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: It means it's an established routine. Right.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: So how insulated does the department have to be for
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: an unofficial syndicate to just operate in plain sight like that?
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: Well, the level of insularity required is just staggering. It
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: points to an environment characterized by systemic blindness.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: Willful blindness, you think?
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: Definitely. For a squad to comfortably adopt that moniker, they
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: must have absolute confidence that the broader infrastructure of the department,
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: so like the supervisors, the internal affairs division, the command staff,
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: is either reliable, Willfully ignorant, structurally incompetent, or just tacitly approving.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: So they basically know nobody is coming to check on them.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: Right. It operates on a principle of mutually assured silence.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: The not reporting it rule isn't just a guideline for
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: the six of them. It becomes a culturally enforced mandate.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: A mandate, yeah.
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: Because if anyone breaks rank, the entire structure collapses. So
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: they select for officers who are willing to participate and
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: remain silent.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: Siloed them, basically.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, creating an echo chamber where extreme behavior is normalized
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: and rewarded with inclusion in the group.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: And the source material actually provides concrete evidence that this
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: wasn't an isolated first-time occurrence either.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: Right, the previous incident.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the text notes that a separate incident in December
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: of 2022 involved three of these exact same officers.
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: Which is just a huge red flag.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: It's a massive indicator that this ecosystem was thriving. They
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: had a system, they had a methodology, and they had
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: a track record of deploying it without facing consequences.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: The culture of silence was working perfectly.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: It really was. And the transition from the theoretical culture
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: of the squad to the brutal reality of their actions
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: happens with terrifying speed.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: It just escalates so fast.
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: We move from a phone call about suspicious demographics to
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: a full tactical deployment in a matter of hours.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: Let's walk through exactly what happened when they arrived at
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: the property, because the timeline is just crucial here.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: The timeline really reveals intent.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: So the six officers, Denton McAlpin, Hunter Elward... Jeffrey Middleton,
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: Daniel Opdyke, and Joshua Hartfield, they breach the home where
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: Jenkins and Parker are staying.
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: Just kick the door in.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And they enter without a warrant. They immediately detain
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: and arrest the two men. And the DOJ explicitly notes
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: that this arrest was conducted, quote, without probable cause.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: Which is illegal.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: Completely. And from that moment of unauthorized entry, Jenkins and
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: Parker are subjected to roughly 90 minutes of sustained torture
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: while handcuffed.
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: The duration of the assault, 90 minutes, is perhaps the
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: most vital element in understanding the legal and moral gravity
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: of these crimes.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: 90 minutes is so long.
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: It is an eternity. Human perception of time in a
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: high-stress violent situation is incredibly distorted anyway.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: Right. A minute feels like an hour.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: Exactly. So 90 minutes is the length of a feature film.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: This completely shatters any defense that this was like a split-second,
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: adrenaline-fueled error in judgment.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: It wasn't the heat of the moment.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: No, it wasn't a physical altercation that escalated out of
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: control during a foot pursuit. This was a methodical, sustained,
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: conscious decision to inflict pain and humiliation minute after minute
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: for an hour and a half.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: The stamina required for that. Right.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: It requires an immense amount of stamina and a continuous
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: collective agreement among the six officers not to intervene or
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: stop the violence.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: And by kicking that door in without a warrant, they
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: didn't just commit breaking and entering, they instantly activated federal jurisdiction.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: Which was their biggest mistake. Right.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: Because the moment they cross that threshold while wearing badges,
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: they're operating under the color of law.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: And that is the precise legal friction that elevates this
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: from a local assault case to a major federal civil
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: rights prosecution.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: This becomes a constitutional issue.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: Yes, exactly. The Fourth Amendment protects citizens against unreasonable searches
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: and seizures. When an individual acting on behalf of the
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: government under the color of law violates that protection... They're
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: essentially weaponizing the state's authority against the citizen.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: It's massive betrayal.
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: It is a profound betrayal of the social contract. The
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: federal civil rights statutes used in cases like this have
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: deep historical roots.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: Going way back. Right.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: They were designed specifically to address situations where local authorities
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: use their power to oppress citizens, particularly when local justice
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: systems are unwilling or unable to hold them accountable.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: Which is exactly what happened here.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Exactly. The officers basically stripped away the constitutional shield
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: that is supposed to protect every American the moment they
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: forced their way into that home.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: And the specifics of those 90 minutes go far beyond
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: physical compliance or subduing a suspect.
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: It wasn't about policing at all.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: No. Here is where it gets really disturbing. According to
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: the DOJ and the ABC7 reporting, the actions included severe
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: physical beatings. The officers mocked the men with racial slurs. Horrific.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: They forced Jenkins and Parker to strip naked and shower together.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: They sexually assaulted them with a sex toy. And they
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: repeatedly shocked the handcuffed men with tasers.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: Just absolute depravity.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: When you look at that list of actions, the physical
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: pain is almost secondary to the psychological objective. They were
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: utilizing degradation and humiliation. To completely break these men. Yeah.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: The introduction of sexual assault and forced nudity into a
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: police encounter is a tactic designed entirely around asserting absolute
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: dominance and destroying human dignity.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: It's just evil.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: It sends a very clear, terrifying message to the victims.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: You are entirely powerless. The law does not apply to
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: you in this room, and the people inflicting this upon
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: you are completely untouchable.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: It's psychological torture.
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: It is a form of psychological warfare. The racial slurs
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: combined with the sexual humiliation demonstrate that the officer's intent
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: was to reduce these men to a state of total subjugation.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: And that kind of trauma lasts forever.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: Yes. The psychological scars inflicted by that level of intentional
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: degradation often outlast the catastrophic physical injuries.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: Which brings us to the absolute zenith of the violence.
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: The climax of it all.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: The torture peaks when Officer Hunter Elward puts a gun
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: into the mouth of Michael Jenkins and pulls the trigger.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: shooting him in the mouth and neck area.
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: It's a miracle he survived that.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: Honestly, yeah. And when that trigger is pulled, the entire
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: dynamic of the room just fractures in a millisecond.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: Everything changes.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: This is no longer just a brutal, horrifying beating. It
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: is a critical, life-threatening event that threatens the lives of
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: the victims. And crucially for the officers, it instantly threatens
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: their jobs, their freedom, and their entire way of life.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: Because you can't just hide a gunshot wound. That single
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: gunshot is the ultimate stress test for the culture of
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: the goon squad. In any functioning police department, an officer-involved shooting,
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: especially an accidental or unjustified one, triggers an immediate massive protocol.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: Like a whole checklist of things you have to do.
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: Right. You render medical aid, you secure the scene, you
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: call for supervisors, you call for paramedics, and you initiate
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: an independent investigation.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: Standard procedure.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: But the machinery of this specific squad operated on the
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: diametrically opposed principle of not reporting it. Right.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: And their survival instinct just kicks in, forcing that machinery
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: to evolve instantly from passive silence into active fabrication.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: They pivot to a cover-up immediately.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: They don't see a dying man bleeding on the floor.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: They see a massive liability that needs to be managed
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: using the tools of their profession. But I have to ask,
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: when an officer literally shoots a handcuffed man in the mouth,
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: how does a group of six people even attempt to
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: walk away from that without someone breaking rank immediately?
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: Well, they attempt it by leaning entirely into the conspiracy
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: that bonded them in the first place.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: The goon squad mentality.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Instead of rendering aid, they transition from extreme violence
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: into calculated bureaucracy.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: Bureaucracy, yeah.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: They leverage their specialized knowledge of crime scene management and
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: evidence collection to construct a legally binding lie.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: And the ABC7 report outlines exactly how they executed this cover-up.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: Following the shooting, the officers deliberately tampered with the scene.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: They staged it.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: They did. They planted evidence. Specifically, they planted drugs and
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: a gun near the victims.
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: To make it look like self-defense.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: Right. They then used that fabricated evidence to file official
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: false charges against Jenkins and Parker. This is what I
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: can only describe as a profound second victimization.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: If we connect this to the bigger picture, the mechanics
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: of planting evidence really highlight the immense... almost unchecked power
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: that law enforcement holds over the official narrative of an event.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: Because their word is gospel in court.
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: Usually, yes. When an officer submits a sworn affidavit or
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: an incident report, the judicial system inherently weighs that document
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: with an immense amount of credibility.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: They assume the officer is telling the truth.
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: Right. So the officers utilize the very systems designed to
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: uncover the truth as weapons to silence the men they
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: just tortured.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: It's so twisted.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: By planting a gun and drugs, they are manufacturing probable
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: cause retroactively. They are creating a paper trail that justifies
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: their unauthorized entry and the subsequent violence.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: Think about the nightmare Jenkins and Parker woke up to.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: I mean, they survived 90 minutes of torture. Jenkins survives
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: a gunshot wound to the face.
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: Incredible trauma.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: And as they are trying to process this extreme physical
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: and psychological trauma... they realize they're being legally framed by
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: the exact same men who abused them.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: It's Kafkaesque.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: It is. As a direct result of this planted evidence,
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: the text states that Jenkins and Parker face these false
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: charges for months. It's an impossible situation for a regular citizen.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: It's like being hit by a car, and then the
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: driver uses their authority to write you a ticket for
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: denting their bumper, except the stakes are decades in prison
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: for the victims.
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: How does the justice system untangle a lie when the
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: liars are the ones writing the police reports?
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: Well, the isolation experienced by the victims during those months
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: must have been absolute.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: So isolating.
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: They know the objective truth of what happened in that house,
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: but they are trapped in a system that is actively
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: prosecuting them based on the word of their torturers.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: And who is going to believe them over six cops?
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Fighting a fabricated police narrative is incredibly difficult. Defense
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: attorneys have to dismantle the chain of custody. They have
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: to look for inconsistencies in the officers' stories and try
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: to prove a negative that the drugs and gun were
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: not there prior to the police arriving.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: Which is almost impossible to prove.
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: It is. The psychological weight of facing severe prison time
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: while recovering from a police shooting, knowing the local machinery
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: of justice is entirely stacked against you, is just an
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: unimaginable burden.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: Looking at this timeline, we really have to recognize how
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: perilously close this cover-up came to actually succeeding.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: It almost worked.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: It did. The local system in Rankin County was processing
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: those false charges. The ecosystem was not self-correcting. If the
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: Department of Justice and the FBI hadn't launched a massive
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: federal investigation in February of 2023, Jenkins and Parker might
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: be sitting in prison right now.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: They absolutely could be.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: And the goon squad would still be responding to dispatch calls.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: That is the most chilling aspect of the entire narrative.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: It demonstrates a complete failure of local government Oversight.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: Complete failure.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: It required the overwhelming resources and jurisdiction of the federal
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: government to penetrate the local shield, dismantle the fabricated narrative,
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: and extract the truth.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: The feds had to step in.
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah. When local systems are compromised by the very people
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: operating them, federal intervention is often the only mechanism capable
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: of restoring any semblance of justice.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: But the federal intervention did work. The cover-up unraveled, the
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: lies collapsed, and that collapse played out in highly dramatic
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: fashion in in a federal courtroom in Jackson, Mississippi.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: It all came crashing down on them.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: It did. Let's look at the sentencing phase, because all
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: six of these men eventually face the reality of their actions,
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: pleading guilty to a combined total of 16 federal felonies.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: 16 felonies among the six of them. Yeah. And the
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: architecture of the sentences handed down by the federal judge
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: provides a very clear look at how the justice system
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: weighs culpability, assigns blame, and doles out punishment Within a
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: complex conspiracy.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: Because they didn't all get the same time.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: No. The sentences are highly calibrated, ranging from 10 years
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: to 40 years, based on each individual's role in the
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: torture and the subsequent cover-up.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: Let's break down that hierarchy because it is extremely revealing.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: It really is.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: Christian Dedman, who prosecutors identified as the primary organizer of
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: the attacks, the one who received the initial call and
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: summoned the squad, he received 40 years in federal prison.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: The harshest sentence.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, 40 years. Brett McAlpin, the deputy who initially passed
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: the complaint to Deadman, received roughly 27 years.
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: Still a very long time.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: Hunter Elward, the officer who actually pulled the trigger and
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: shot Jenkins in the mouth, received 241 months, which is
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: just over 20 years.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: Jeffrey Middleton and Daniel Opdyke. both received 17 and a
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: half years. And finally, Joshua Hartfield, who is notably a
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: Richland police officer, received 10 years.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: And the disparity between Christian Dedman's sentence and Hunter Elward's
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: sentence is a perfect illustration of how federal conspiracy law operates.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: Wait, so Demand getting 40 years, that's effectively double the
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: sentence of the man who actually fired the weapon.
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And this underscores the justice system's intense focus on
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: the organizer of the violence.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: The mastermind, basically.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: Right. Federal prosecutors consistently target the orchestrator. The individual who
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: summons the group creates the environment for the abuse to
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: occur and directs the actions of the subordinates as the
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: most dangerous element of the conspiracy.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: Because without them, it doesn't happen.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: That's the logic. Yeah. The logic is that without the organizer,
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: the squad never assembles, the door is never kicked in,
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: and the violence never happens. So the person pulling the
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: strings is penalized far more heavily than the person pulling
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: the trigger.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: Wow, that makes a lot of sense when you put
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: it that way.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: And the atmosphere in the courtroom during these sentencings was
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: incredibly heavy, with several of the officers offering emotional statements.
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: Lots of tears.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Daniel Opdyke, who received the 17-and-a-half-year sentence... openly cried
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: during the proceedings. He told the court that his time
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: in prison so far had forced him to reflect on, quote,
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: how I transformed into the monster I became that night.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: A very dramatic statement.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: He addressed the victims directly, saying, the weight of my
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: actions and the harm I've caused will haunt me every day.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: I wish it could take away your suffering.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: This raises an important question regarding the nature of human
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: behavior and institutional corruption.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: Does someone just become a monster overnight?
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: Well, that's the thing. He uses the phrase transformed into
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: the monster I became that night. This phrasing suggests a
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: sudden Jekyll and Hyde metamorphosis as if a switch was
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: flipped for 90 minutes and then flipped back.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: Right, like he wasn't himself.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: But behavioral psychology and the realities of police subcultures suggest
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: a very different mechanism. You do not transform into a
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: monster in a single night.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: It's gradual.
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: Yes, you are gradually desensitized to violence. The existence of
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: the goon squad moniker, the previous incident in December 2022,
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: all of it points to a slow erosion of moral boundaries.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: Step by step.
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: The culture rewarded brutality and demanded silence, slowly molding these
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: men into individuals capable of horrific acts. The transformation was
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: a process, not an event.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: I look at the apologies from the other officers, too.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: Dedman told the courtroom, if I could take every bit
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: of it back, I promise I would. Elwood, the shooter, stated,
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: I hate myself for it. I accept my responsibility.
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: Y'all had something to say.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: We hear these tearful, dramatic apologies in court grown men
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: saying they hate themselves and wishing they could undo the past.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: But how does the justice system process these displays of emotion?
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: Do you think the system views these apologies as genuine
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: remorse or just the realization that they're not reported rule
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: finally failed?
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: Well, the legal system processes apologies primarily through the lens
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: of sentencing guidelines, looking for a formal acceptance of responsibility,
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: which can sometimes slightly mitigate the length of a sentence.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: So it's transactional.
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: In many ways, yes. A judge observes the demeanor of
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: the defendant, but it is impossible to truly decouple their
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: tears from the crushing reality of a 40-year prison sentence.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: Right. They're facing the rest of their lives in a box.
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: When analyzing the genuineness of the remorse, you have to
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: look at the timeline of their actions.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: Which is... Damning.
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: Completely. They did not experience a crisis of conscience the
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: morning after the assault. They did not anonymously tip off
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: internal affairs.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: No, they doubled down.
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: They actively planted evidence, filed false reports, and maintained a
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: coordinated lie while the victims faced prison time. The remorse
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: only materialized after the Department of Justice brought the overwhelming
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: weight of federal indictments down upon them.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: So they're only sorry they got caught.
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: They are apologizing because they were caught and the cover-up failed.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: There's another massive detail in this sentencing list that we
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: need to pull apart. Joshua Hartfield received a 10-year sentence,
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: but the source material specifically identifies him as a Richland
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: police officer, whereas the other five men were Rankin County
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: Sheriff's deputies.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: That is a huge detail.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: And that completely shifts the scope of the problem, doesn't it?
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: It absolutely does. The inclusion of an officer from an
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: entirely different jurisdiction is a crucial piece of evidence regarding
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: the spread of this toxic culture.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: It proves that the goon squad mentality wasn't cleanly contained
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: within the walls of one specific sheriff's department. It was
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: bleeding across jurisdictional lines.
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: Yes, spreading like a virus.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: You have officers from different law enforcement agencies collaborating in
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: a shadow network of excessive force. It suggests this was
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: a regional cultural issue, a shared ideology among certain officers,
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: rather than just a few bad apples in one specific precinct.
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: It highlights the insidious viral nature of corrupt police subcultures.
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: These networks operate through personal relationships, shared mentalities, and a
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: mutual understanding of impunity, completely ignoring the boundaries of uniform patches,
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: agency policies, or city limits.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: It's like a fraternity of violence.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: Basically, yes. If a Rankin County deputy feels comfortable enough
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: to casually invite a Richland police officer to participate in
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: a violent, warrantless, off-the-books raid... It means the culture of
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: the not reported rule was widely understood, accepted and shared
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: among a broader geographic network of law enforcement.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: So the federal court has its say. The judge hands
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: down decades of prison time. The officers cry. They apologize.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: The bureaucratic machinery of justice processes the pleas.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: The paperwork is filed.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: Right. But the true emotional and moral anchor of that
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: entire courtroom didn't come from the judge or the defendants.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: It came directly from the men who survived the torture.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: Jenkins and Parker.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: Let's examine how Michael Jenkins and Eddie Parker navigated this
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: moment because their reactions are a staggering display of the
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: complexity of trauma, forgiveness, and justice.
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: The juxtaposition of how these two men process the apologies
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: of their abusers is a profound masterclass in the human condition.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: It really is.
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: They endured the exact same 90-minute nightmare in that house.
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: They were subjected to the same degradation. Yet their responses
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: to the men who tortured them are fundamentally different, and
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: both perspectives are incredibly powerful and deeply valid.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: During the proceedings, Eddie Parker actually stood up in the courtroom.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: He looked directly at Hunter Elward, the man who tortured
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: him and shot his friend in the face, and told
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: Elward that he forgives him.
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: Which is just astounding.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: But Parker later clarified this statement to reporters outside the courthouse.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: He explained that he forgives what is done, but he
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: emphasized that Elward, quote, still did what he did, and
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: he has to be punished.
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: Parker is demonstrating an extraordinary emotional and psychological feat in
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: that moment.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: Threading a needle, really.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: He's threading an almost impossibly narrow needle by separating personal
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: spiritual forgiveness from the concept of legal and societal accountability.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: Forgiving the man, but not the crime.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: Exactly. By stating that he forgives what is done, Parker
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: is making a conscious decision to release the personal burden
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: of hatred. He is refusing to allow the toxicity of
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: that night to consume his spirit, or dictate his emotional future.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: That's an act of self-preservation.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: It is an act of profound self-preservation and grace. But
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: by immediately following it up with the assertion that Elwood
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: has to be punished, he is affirming that his personal
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: grace does not equal a legal free pass.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: The law still applies.
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: Right. He is demanding that the scales of justice remain balanced,
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: recognizing that society requires consequences for horrific actions, regardless of
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: personal forgiveness.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: And then you have Michael Jenkins, the man who physically
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: absorbed the bullet. When reporters asked Jenkins if he also
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: found it in his heart to forgive Elward Jenkins, it
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: was starkly clear. He said, quote, I don't know, no, no,
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: because if he wouldn't have got caught, he'd still be
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: doing the same thing.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: Jenkins's perspective offers a powerful dose of unvarnished realism.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: It cuts right through the BS.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: It really does. It validates the exact skepticism we were
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: discussing earlier regarding the true nature of the officer's tears.
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: Jenkins is cutting through the emotional performance of the courtroom
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: and and pointing directly at the systemic reality of the situation.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: He sees right through them.
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: His logic is absolutely unassailable. The remorse is entirely conditional.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: It is only happening because the machinery of their cover-up
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: broke down.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: Because they got caught.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: Yes. Jenkins recognizes that without the DOJ intervention, without the
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: FBI investigation, Elward would still be on the street with
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: a badge on his chest, operating with the goon squad
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: and brutalizing other citizens.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: He's not wrong.
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: No, he's entirely right. Jenkins rightfully refuses to grant moral
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: absolution to someone whose only reason for stopping the torture
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: was being forced to stop by a higher authority.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: So what does this all mean? When you visualize that
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: courtroom scene, the sheer weight of what the victims are
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: being asked to carry is overwhelming.
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: It is an impossible burden.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: You have the perpetrators in shackles crying and offering apologies.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: You have the massive apparatus of the federal government handing
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: down numbers like 40 years. But Parker and Jenkins are
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: the ones bearing the true burden.
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: The sheer endurance required to stand in the same room
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: as the men who degraded you, sexually assaulted you, shot you,
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: and then used their badges to frame you and to
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: stand there and articulate your truth, whether it's Parker's nuanced
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: spiritual grace or Jenkins' justified grounded refusal. It highlights the
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: immense unfair burden placed on victims of institutional violence.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: It does.
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: They don't just have to survive the physical assault. They
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: are tasked with carrying the emotional weight of the resolution.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: They are forced to act as the conscience of a
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: system that actively tried to destroy them. It is an
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: extraordinary burden that no citizen should ever have to bear.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: And while these federal sentencing certainly bring a measure of
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: closure to the events of that specific night, the legal
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: machinery surrounding this case and its broader historical impact on
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: policing is far from finished.
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: There's much more to come.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: Let's look at the ongoing legal horizon, because the ramifications
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: of these convictions are rippling outward.
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: The statements made outside the courthouse by legal advocates and
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: the federal government indicate that they view this as a
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: precedent-setting moment. Write a warning shot across the bow of
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: corrupt policing nationwide.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Malik Shabazz, the lead attorney representing Jenkins and Parker,
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: made a very strong, sweeping statement following the sentencing. He declared, quote,
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: History was made today in Mississippi.
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: Very powerful words.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: And he specifically framed the harsh 40-year sentence handed down
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: to Christian Dedman as a warning. He said all of
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: these goon squad sentences are sending a serious message to
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: all rogue police and other goon squads all over America
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: that justice is coming to you.
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: Parsing Shabazz's statement reveals a deep understanding of the systemic
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: vulnerabilities in American law enforcement.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: Because he mentions other goon squads. Right.
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: The phrasing other goon squads all over America is highly significant.
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: He is not viewing Rankin County as a bizarre, isolated anomaly.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: He thinks this is happening everywhere.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: He is identifying it as a symptom of a broader disease.
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: He is suggesting that the culture of the not reported rule,
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: the insularity, the willingness to use excessive force, these dynamics
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: exist in other departments, in other counties, and in other states.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: It's a systemic issue.
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: Yes. By emphasizing the severity of the federal sentences, Shabazz
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: is highlighting a strategy of aggressive federal deterrence. It's a
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: clear message that local cover-ups, no matter how tightly coordinated,
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: cannot withstand the overwhelming scrutiny and resources of the federal government.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: Attorney General Merrick Garland echoed that exact sentiment, too, releasing
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: a statement that the Justice Department will relentlessly hold accountable
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: officers who violate constitutional rights and betray the public trust.
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: The feds are making a statement.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: But the legal consequences for these six men aren't just
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: limited to these federal sentences in Jackson. The source material
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: notes that these officers also face similar state charges and
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: are awaiting sentencing in the state case.
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: Yes, this case involves a dual-track legal system, which is
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: common in major civil rights violations.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: Let's explain why that dual-track system exists. Why do cases
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: involving police brutality often require the federal DOJ to step
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: in rather than just being handled locally by the state
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: of Mississippi?
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: It goes back to our earlier discussion about the failure
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: of local oversight. When state or local officials like sheriff's
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: deputies commit crimes using the authority granted to them by
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: the state, the state itself is often structurally compromised in
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: its ability to impartially prosecute them.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: Because they work together.
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Local prosecutors rely on these same deputies to build
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: their everyday cases. They work in the same buildings. They
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: have deeply entwined professional relationships.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: It's a conflict of interest.
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: A massive one. The federal government, utilizing civil rights statutes...
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: has the authority to step in and bypass those local
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: conflicts of interest when a citizen's constitutional rights are violated
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: under the color of law.
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: An independent track.
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: It provides an independent, significantly more resourced track for justice.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: The ABC7 report mentions that the state sentences will be
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: served concurrently, which simply means they will serve their state
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: prison time simultaneously with their federal time rather than back-to-back.
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: Beyond the criminal consequences, there is another massive legal battle unfolding.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: The ABC7 report mentions that attorneys for Jenkins and Parker
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: filed a notice of claim for a $ 400 million federal
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: civil lawsuit against the officers in the county.
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: $ 400 million. Yeah.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: But what struck me as incredibly jarring is a detail
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: from October 2023. The denial. Yes. The text states that
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: in October 2023, the officers formally responded to the complaint
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: and explicitly denied the allegations alleged in the civil lawsuit. Wait,
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: how does that square with reality? How did these men
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: deny the allegations in a civil suit? but then stand
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: in a federal criminal court just a few months later
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: pleading guilty, crying, and admitting to everything.
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: That dissonance highlights the tactical and often deeply cynical nature
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: of the legal system, specifically the vast difference between criminal
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: pleas and civil liability defenses.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: So it's a legal strategy.
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: Entirely. In October 2023, the officers were likely still attempting
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: to negotiate the terms of their criminal pleas, or their
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: civil attorneys were employing a standard aggressive defensive tactic.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: Deny, deny, deny.
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: Right, because in civil court, the battle is entirely over
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: monetary damages and liability. Admitting fault in a civil response
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: instantly opens the floodgates to that $ 400 million claim, essentially
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: surrendering the county's and the officer's financial defenses.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: So they play games on paper.
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: So they deny the reality of the events on paper
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: in the civil arena to force the plaintiffs to prove
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: every single element of the damages... even while the criminal
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: walls are rapidly closing in on them in the federal investigation.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: It must be exhausting for the victims.
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: It shows how incredibly complex and protracted the journey to
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: full justice truly is for the victims. They secured the
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: criminal accountability, the prison sentences, but the fight for civil
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: restitution and systemic financial penalty is a completely different ongoing battleground.
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: And finally, we have to touch on the December 2022
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: incident one more time. The DOJ noted that Dedman, Elward,
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: and Opdyke pled guilty to three additional federal felony offenses
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: related to a completely separate incident that took place during
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: a traffic stop on December 4, 2022.
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: Just weeks before.
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is weeks before the torture of Jenkins and Parker.
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: And that detail brings this entire deep dive full circle,
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: cementing everything we've discussed about the nature of this SWAD.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: It really does. The fact that three of these exact
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: same officers were involved in another felony assault just weeks
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: prior proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: goon squad was actively operating, escalating its behavior and feeling
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: completely invincible right up until the moment they pulled the
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: trigger on Michael Jenkins.
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: They thought they were untouchable.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: It proves this wasn't one bad night where things got
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: out of hand. It was a functioning, tolerated business model
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: of brutality.
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: It underscores the profound tragedy of missed opportunities for intervention
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: within law enforcement.
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: Because if they had been stopped in December.
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: Exactly. If that December 2022 incident had been properly flagged, reported,
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: investigated and prosecuted by the department's command staff or internal affairs,
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: the 90 minutes of terror inflicted on Jenkins and Parker
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: might never have happened.
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: It could have all been prevented.
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: It is the ultimate proof that the not reported culture
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: is a cancer that spreads and metastasizes rapidly and if
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: left unchecked by the surrounding ecosystem.
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: So as we wrap up this deep dive, let's synthesize
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: the incredible breadth of what we've walked through today based
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: on the ABC7 reporting. We started with a racially biased,
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: suspicious activity call from a neighbor.
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: One phone call.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: We traced how that single phone call activated a shadow
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: network operating within a Mississippi Sheriff's Department. We unraveled the brutal,
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: agonizing reality of a 90-minute torture session. a massive calculated
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: cover-up involving planted guns and fabricated charges, and finally, the
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: dismantling of the Rankin County Goon Squad, resulting in 16
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: federal felony convictions and decades in federal prison.
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: And we must connect the mechanics of this case back
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: to why this matters to you, the listener, regardless of
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: where you live.
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: Why they should care.
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: Because the authority granted to law enforcement is the most
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: immense power a society can bestow upon an individual. It
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: is the power to detain... to use physical force to
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: take away liberty, and in extreme cases, to take life.
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: It's the ultimate power.
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: This case out of Rankin County is a stark, unavoidable
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: reminder of the rigorous, uncompromising oversight required to ensure that
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: power isn't weaponized against the very citizens it's meant to protect.
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: Absolute power corrupts, absolutely.
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: It shows us that uniforms and badges do not grant
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: immunity from human depravity. and that the systems designed to
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: protect our constitutional rights can easily be inverted without constant
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: aggressive vigilance from the community and the federal government.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: We rely on the system to investigate crimes. We are
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: taught from a very young age to look for the
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: uniform right to call 911 when we are in danger,
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: trusting that the people arriving will restore order. But I
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: want to leave you with a final thought to mull
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: over as you go about your day.
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: Something to really think about.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: When a culture of silence takes deep root within a department,
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: When the very people tasked with uncovering the truth are
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: the exact same people burying it under planted guns, false charges,
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: and a not-reported rule, who do you call for help?
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us on this deep dive. Keep
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: asking the tough questions, keep seeking out the facts, and
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: we will see you next time.