Goon Squad Hearings Reveal Culture of Violence in Mississippi Sheriff’s Office

Former deputies said they saw brutality as a way to rise in the ranks of a department that celebrated violence against people suspected of crimes.

Sentencing hearings this week for six law enforcement officers, some of whom were members of the Goon Squad, revealed a disturbing portrait of a Mississippi sheriff’s department that encouraged deputies to use extreme violence as a policing tool.

Prosecutors, along with several of the deputies who were sentenced, described a toxic culture in which senior officers directed the men they oversaw to humiliate and torture people suspected of crimes.

Young deputies said they saw violence as a way to earn promotions and to live up to the expectations of their supervisors, who were considered heroes of the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department.

In court this week, Christian Dedmon, a former narcotics detective, said that a culture of misconduct reigned at the sheriff’s office and that he rose through the ranks at the department because of his willingness “to do bad things.”

Mr. Dedmon and five other former law enforcement officers from Rankin County were sentenced this week to prison terms for federal civil rights violations stemming from the torture and sexual assault of two Black men, Michael Jenkins and Eddie Parker, in January 2023.

The officers, who pleaded guilty last summer, shocked both men with Tasers and abused them with a sex toy. During what was described as a mock execution, one of the officers shot Mr. Jenkins in the mouth, nearly killing him.