Rankin County Sheriff Bryan Bailey says he is implementing policy changes at his department after five so-called “goon squad” deputies pleaded guilty to state and federal charges over the January 2023 beating and sexual assault of two Black men, Michael Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker, in Braxton, Miss. The sheriff, who won reelection in November with no opposition, announced the changes in a press release originally shared with Pelahatchie News.
The policy changes include prohibitions on threatening and terrorizing people and requiring officers to intervene to stop other officers who engage in such conduct.
“This past January, inappropriate conduct from an isolated group of deputies injured citizens in our county and undermined the reputation of this department,” he said in the Nov. 28 press release. “The safety and security of our citizens, and visitors, is one of our main objectives, and we take all occurrences of this nature very seriously.”
Two days after Bailey’s claim that an “isolated group of deputies” were responsible, Mississippi Today and The New York Times reported that the “loose band of sheriff’s deputies” known as the “goon squad” has engaged in similar actions against other people in impoverished neighborhoods in the county for nearly two decades.
The sheriff said that “once the true facts were discovered,” the department “cooperated fully with the official investigation” and fired deputies Hunter Elward, Christian Dedmon, Brett Mc’Alpin, Daniel Opdyke and Jeffrey Middleton in June. Richland Police Chief Nick McLendon announced in July that his department had fired Richland officer Joshua Hartfield in connection with Jenkins’ and Parker’s case.
U.S. District Judge Tom Lee scheduled the men’s sentencing for January 2024.
Jeffrey Artis and his company J. Artis Consulting, who have worked with the FBI for decades, helped the sheriff’s department make over its policies and procedures handbook, the press release said.
Click here to read the new Rankin County Sheriff’s Department Policy and Procedure Manual. File courtesy Rankin County
In the 68-page document, the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department outlined 13 “general orders,” several policies and procedures, and dozens of “rules of conduct” that it says now apply to all