Men who had sworn an oath to guard and serve huddled on the back porch of a Mississippi home as Michael Corey Jenkins lay on the floor, blood streaming from his damaged tongue after one of the cops jammed a revolver in his mouth and fired the trigger.

As Jenkins writhed in agony, the six white policemen concocted a plan to cover up scores of shocking acts of cruelty that they had just committed against Jenkins and a second Black victim during 90 minutes of dread.

The cops planted narcotics and stole the house's surveillance footage. They attempted to destroy additional evidence, then settled on a series of lies that would further disrupt the lives of their victims.

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They burst in without a warrant, avoiding the house's surveillance cameras, and began physical, sexual, and psychological abuse. Jenkins and his companion Eddie Terrell Parker were chained, and they poured milk, whiskey, and chocolate syrup on their faces. They used racial slurs to taunt the victims. They used stun guns to stun them.

The officers intended to torture the men without leaving physical scars. But one shot Jenkins in the mouth. Miraculously, Jenkins survived.

Officers plead guilty 

The six policemen pleaded guilty on Thursday to a slew of federal civil rights violations. Following that, the Mississippi Attorney General's Office revealed that it had brought state charges for assault, conspiracy, and obstruction of justice.

Law enforcement officers are seldom charged for crimes committed on the job, and it’s rarer still for them to plead guilty.

The charges follow an investigation by The Associated Press that linked some of the deputies to at least four violent encounters with Black men since 2019 that left two dead and another with lasting injuries.

The officers pleaded guilty to conspiracy against rights, obstructions of justice, deprivation of rights under color of law, discharge of a firearm during a violent crime, and conspiracy to obstruct justice.

The terror began on January 24 with a racial demand for extrajudicial violence that felt dated.

How did such terror operations start? 

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A white neighbor informed Rankin County Deputy Brett McAlpin about two Black men staying in a Braxton home with a white woman. McAlpin notified Deputy Christian Dedmon, who texted a group of white officers who were so willing to use excessive force that they called themselves "The Goon Squad."

“Are y’all available for a mission?” Dedmon asked. They were.

Opdyke "admits he was wrong for his part in the horrific harms" and "is prepared to face the consequences of his actions," according to his attorney, Jason Kirschberg, adding that Hartfield’s attorney Vicki Gilliam said while he “cannot change what he did, he has shown that he is ready to accept consequences.”

Black residents condemn police violence 

Black residents expressed outrage on Friday at the former police officers' acts, and showed appreciation to Jenkins and Parker for speaking out about their treatment, and satisfaction that the officers were being prosecuted.

“When the people that you expect to protect you are the people who are hurting you and killing you, there just are no words to describe how it has affected the mindset, the mental state of our people,” said Angela English, the county’s NAACP president.

In the United States, law enforcement wrongdoing has come under growing criticism. The police death of George Floyd in 2020 sparked calls for broad criminal justice reforms and a rethinking of American race relations.

Tyre Nichols was beaten to death in January by five Black members of a special police squad in Memphis, Tennessee, prompting an investigation into similar groups around the country.

What happened to Jenkins? 

According to court filings, the cops warned Jenkins and Parker to "stay out of Rankin County and go back to Jackson or 'their side' of the Pearl River," referring to an area with a higher population of Black inhabitants.

As Jenkins bled on the floor, the police concocted a cover narrative for the cops: Elward lured Jenkins into a separate room to arrange a drug arrest over the phone, and Jenkins lunged for a gun when he was released from handcuffs.

#Racism isn't dead.
Statistics show that black Americans are more likely to be falsely convicted 7 times more than white #Americans before being exonerated. pic.twitter.com/YJ8g3ANy6T

— Al Mayadeen English (@MayadeenEnglish) September 29, 2022

Middleton volunteered to put in an unlicensed gun, but Elward thought the BB gun would suffice. Dedmon agreed to plant the methamphetamine he had obtained from an informant.

Jenkins was initially charged with a felony in Rankin County based on methamphetamine. That was later abandoned.

Opdyke placed one of Elward's shot casings in a water bottle and tossed it into the neighboring tall grass. Hartfield took the hard drive from the home's surveillance system and threw it into a creek.

McAlpin and Middleton then made a promise: they would kill any officers who told the truth about what had happened.

The police remained quiet as the Justice Department's civil rights investigation intensified. Sheriff Bailey stated that one person came forward in June. Bailey said on Thursday that he was duped and discovered the truth only after reading unsealed court documents. McAlpin and Elward were sued multiple times for suspected misbehavior while working for Bailey.

The deputies, according to the sheriff, violated existing body camera policies by not wearing them while in uniform. He promised to make body cameras mandatory with fewer exclusions and to be open to additional federal control. He also referred to the officers as "criminals," mirroring the words of federal prosecutors. “Now, they’ll be treated as the criminals they are,” U.S. Attorney LaMarca said.