JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The Justice Department has opened a civil rights investigation into a Mississippi sheriff's department whose officers tortured two Black men in a racist attack that included beatings, repeated use of stun guns and assaults with a sex toy before one of the victims was shot in the mouth, officials said Thursday.
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.
Five Rankin sheriff's deputies pleaded guilty in 2023 to breaking into a home without a warrant and engaging in an hourslong attack on Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker. A sixth officer, from the Richland Police Department, was also convicted in the attack
Some of the officers were part of a group so willing to use excessive force they called themselves the Goon Squad. All six were sentenced in March, receiving terms of 10 to 40 years.
The charges followed an Associated Press investigation in March 2023 that linked some of the officers to at least four violent encounters since 2019 that left two Black men dead.
“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.
The attacks on Jenkins and Parker began on Jan. 24, 2023, with a racist call for extrajudicial violence, according to federal prosecutors. A white person phoned Deputy Brett McAlpin and complained that two Black men were staying with a white woman at a house in Braxton.
Once inside the home, the officers handcuffed Jenkins and Parker and poured milk, alcohol and chocolate syrup over their faces while mocking them with racial slurs. They forced them to strip naked and shower together to conceal the mess. They mocked the victims with racial slurs and assaulted them with sex objects.
Locals saw in the grisly details of the case echoes of Mississippi’s history of racist atrocities by people in authority. The difference this time is that those who abused their power paid a steep price for their crimes, attorneys for the victims have said.
In addition to McAlpin, the others convicted were former deputies Christian Dedmon, Hunter Elward, Jeffrey Middleton and Daniel Opdyke and former Richland police officer Joshua Hartfield.
U.S. District Judge Tom Lee called the former officers’ actions “egregious and despicable” and imposed sentences near the top of federal guidelines for five of the six.
“The depravity of the crimes committed by these defendants cannot be overstated,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said after the sentencing.
Malik Shabazz and Trent Walker, the attorneys for Jenkins and Parker, said in a statement Thursday that Rankin County has a “long and extremely violent legacy of departmental abuse under Sheriff Bryan Bailey” and that they applaud the Justice Department for opening the civil rights investigation
“This is a first, critical step in cleaning up the Sheriff’s Department and holding Rankin County legally accountable for the years of constitutional violations against its citizenry,” Shabazz and Walker said. “All of this took place because, despite innumerable warnings, Rankin County and Sheriff Bailey belligerently refused to properly monitor and supervise this rogue department.”
The Rankin County Sheriff's Department is the 11th law enforcement agency in the U.S. to come under a Justice Department investigation since 2021, Clarke said.
The U.S. attorney for the southern district of Mississippi, Todd Gee, said text messages between Goon Squad members, including officers who were not present during the January 2023 assault, showed that deputies “routinely discussed extreme, unnecessary uses of force and other ways to dehumanize residents of Rankin County.” He said deputies shared a video of an officer defecating in the home of one resident.
“In Mississippi and throughout the nation, we have learned over and over that real change in civil rights sometimes requires us to dig up the past, tell painful facts and offer new ways of doing things," Gee said. "We intend for this investigation to do that same work in Rankin County.”
Associated Press writer Michael Goldberg contributed.
FILE - This combination of photos shows former Mississippi law enforcement officers who pleaded guilty to state and federal charges for torturing two Black men, from top left, former Rankin County sheriff’s deputies Hunter Elward, Christian Dedmon, Brett McAlpin, Jeffrey Middleton, Daniel Opdyke and former Richland police officer Joshua Hartfield, during court appearances Monday, Aug. 14, 2023, in Brandon, Miss. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File)
MAPUTO, Mozambique (AP) — Mozambique is voting for a new president on Wednesday in an election that is expected to extend the ruling party's 49 years in power since the southern African nation gained independence from Portugal in 1975.
Daniel Chapo, 47, is the candidate for the ruling Front for the Liberation of Mozambique, or Frelimo, seeking to succeed President Filipe Nyusi, who has served a maximum two terms.
Analysts say the strongest challenge to Chapo and Frelimo's dominance will likely come from 50-year-old independent Venancio Mondlane, a newcomer to national politics.
People also will vote for the makeup of Parliament and for provincial governors in a country of some 33 million people that went through a bloody, 15-year civil war that ended in 1992, and more recently has been shaken by an ongoing violent jihadist insurgency in the north.
Ending that insurgency and bringing stability to Cabo Delgado province — where 1.3 million fled their homes and more than half remain displaced — is a pledge by both leading candidates, while poverty, youth unemployment and government corruption are top issues for voters.
"I am still selling biscuits at a vegetable market here in Maputo to take care of my two children," 35-year-old Felicidade Simao said at a polling station. “My husband is unemployed and we are struggling. I want the best for my children and the winner of this election must make the dream of a better life in the future.”
Vote-counting is due to start right after polls close in the one-day election. Preliminary results from some areas are expected from Thursday, and the full results must be delivered to the Constitutional Council within 15 days of polls closing to be validated and formally declared. Around 17 million people are registered to vote.
The credibility of the election will be under scrutiny, with the leftist Frelimo party accused of ballot-stuffing and falsifying results in previous votes, including last year's local elections.
Frelimo has consistently denied the accusations of election tampering. Teams of regional and international election observers are in Mozambique, including from the European Union.
Frelimo effectively established a one-party state following independence and fought a civil war against the Mozambique National Resistance, or Renamo, for a decade and a half. The country, where Portuguese remains the official language, held its first elections in 1994, two years after a peace agreement.
Renamo is also contesting this election, with party leader Ossufo Momade, a military commander in the civil war, its candidate for president. The peace between Frelimo and Renamo has been fragile, with an outbreak of more fighting in 2013. Momade and outgoing leader Nyusi signed another peace deal in 2019.
But tensions remain, especially between the two political parties that were once at war with each other.
There are four candidates for president: Chapo, Mondlane, Momade and Lutero Simango of the Mozambique Democratic Movement, who is viewed as an outsider.
“I thank the entire Mozambican population for this opportunity we have today,” favorite Chapo said as he voted in the southern city of Inhambane. “We equally salute everyone for this orderly and peaceful environment seen since the beginning of the electoral campaign.”
The independent Mondlane, who broke away from Renamo, has focused his campaign on young Mozambicans frustrated with poverty and unemployment. The country boasts a long coastline of picturesque beaches on the Indian Ocean, but that vulnerable area has been battered by cyclones in recent years. A drought this year in the southern African region has left more than a million Mozambicans impacted by hunger.
Meanwhile, it emerged in 2016 that government officials and others had embezzled more than $2 billion in foreign loans that were kept secret, sending the economy into a crisis from which it is still recovering.
“All Mozambicans have high hopes from the new president,” said 69-year-old Baptista Antonio, who was one of the first to vote at an elementary school in the capital and port city of Maputo. "I was born during the colonial era and saw many transformations of the country from wars to development and all I can say is it’s a work in progress. There are many challenges ahead.”
Mondlane was aligned with a coalition of opposition parties, but they were barred from contesting the election, which raised accusations against Frelimo of attempting to control the election. He is now supported by a new party called Podemos, which means “we can” in Portuguese. A former banker, Mondlane drew large crowds to some of his boisterous pre-election rallies, and his emergence is a new challenge to Frelimo, which has traditionally won national elections comfortably ahead of Renamo.
Most analysts expect Frelimo to remain in power. It was declared the winner with more than 70% of the vote in national elections five years ago.
The Pangea risk company, which provides security and investment advice on developing countries, said Chapo's election has been "carefully stage managed" by Frelimo.
Chapo worked as a radio announcer and television presenter before becoming a law professor. He was the governor of southern Inhambane province — Mozambique's flagship tourism region — but was a surprise winner of an internal party vote in May to become Frelimo's presidential candidate.
Chapo would be Mozambique's first leader born after independence if he wins.
AP Africa news: https://apnews.com/hub/africa
A pedestrian passes a wall of election posters in Maputo, Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024, ahead of elections to be held in Mozambique. (AP Photo/Carlos Uqueio)
A poster of independent candidate Venacio Mondlane is held at an election rally on Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024 in Maputo ahead of elections in Mozambique. (AP Photo/Carlos Uqueio)
A building displays ruling party posters in support of presidential candidate Daniel Chapo ahead of elections in Maputo, Mozambique, Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Carlos Uqueio)
People queue to cast their votes during the general elections in Maputo, Mozambique, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Charles Mangwiro)
People queue to cast their votes during the general elections in Maputo, Mozambique, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Charles Mangwiro)
People queue to cast their votes during general elections in Maputo, Mozambique, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Carlos Equeio)
People queue to cast their votes during general elections in Maputo, Mozambique, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Carlos Equeio)
People queue to cast their votes during the general elections in Maputo, Mozambique, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Charles Mangwiro)
People queue to cast their votes during general elections in Maputo, Mozambique, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Carlos Equeio)
People queue to cast their votes during general elections in Maputo, Mozambique, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Carlos Equeio)
People queue to cast their votes during general elections in Maputo, Mozambique, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Carlos Equeio)
Supporters take part in a ruling party rally for presidential candidate Daniel Chapo, centre, ahead of elections, in Maputo, Mozambique, Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Carlos Uqueio)
A woman sits between bread rolls in Maputo, Mozambique, Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024 ahead of elections to be held in the country. (AP Photo/Carlos Uqueio)
Independent candidate Venacio Mondlane, atop truck, attends an election rally in Maputo, Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024 ahead of elections to be held in Mozambique. (AP Photo/Carlos Uqueio)
Supporters take part in a ruling party rally to support presidential candidate Daniel Chapo ahead of elections, in Maputo, Mozambique, Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Carlos Uqueio)
