Tuesday, March 19, 2024
Year : 2, Issue : 12
A former Mississippi sheriff’s deputy was sentenced Tuesday to about 20 years in prison for his part in torturing two Black men. Hunter Elward received a 241-month sentence from U.S. District Judge Tom Lee in a Jackson federal court.
Before sentencing, Lee called Elward’s crimes “egregious and despicable,” and said a “sentence at the top of the guidelines range is justified – is more than justified.” He continued: “It’s what the defendant deserves. It’s what the community and the defendant’s victims deserve.”
Another officer, Jeffrey Middleton, will be sentenced on Tuesday afternoon. Four other former law enforcement officers are also set to be sentenced this week by the same judge.
Each faces the potential of decades behind bars after admitting in August that they submitted two Black men to numerous acts of racially motivated torture in January 2023.
The terror began on Jan. 24, 2023, with a racist call for extrajudicial violence. A white person phoned Rankin County Deputy Brett McAlpin and complained that two Black men were staying with a white woman at a house in Braxton, Mississippi. McAlpin told Deputy Christian Dedmon, who texted a group of white deputies so willing to use excessive force they called themselves “The Goon Squad.”
Ahead of sentencing, Jenkins and Parker called for the “stiffest of sentences” at a news conference Monday. Source: CBS News
The officers charged include Elward, Middleton, Brett McAlpin, Christian Dedmon and Daniel Opdyke of the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department and Joshua Hartfield, a Richland police officer. They pleaded guilty to charges including conspiracy against rights, obstructions of justice, deprivation of rights under color of law, discharge of a firearm under a crime of violence, and conspiracy to obstruct justice.
On the federal charges, Dedmon and Elward each face a maximum sentence of 120 years plus life in prison and $2.75 million in fines. Hartfield faces a possible sentence of 80 years and $1.5 million, McAlpin faces 90 years and $1.75 million, Middleton faces 80 years and $1.5 million, and Opdyke could be sentenced to 100 years with a $2 million fine.
