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PHILADELPHIA, MS – JUNE 21: State troopers stand in the aisles as local law enforement guard the doorways prior to the reading of the verdict in the murder trial of Edgar Ray Killen June 21, 2005, in Philadelphia, Mississippi. Killen, an 80-year-old former Ku Klux Klansman, was convicted of manslaughter in the 1964 slayings of three civil rights workers. (Photo by Rogelio Solis-Pool/Getty Images)
The six former Mississippi police officers who assaulted two Black men during a raid have pleaded guilty, Associated Press reported.
Mississippi’s attorney general’s office announced on Aug. 3 that it filed state charges against the six former officers, who refer to themselves as “The Goon Squad,” including assault, conspiracy and obstruction of justice.
Christian Dedmon, Hunter Elward, Brett McAlpin, Jeffrey Middleton and Daniel Opdyke, are the five former Rankin County Sheriff’s Department officers listed as well as Joshua Hartfield, a former Richland police officer, who was off-duty when he participated in the raid.
The Justice Department opened an investigation in February against the deputies and filed civil rights charges against them.
“The defendants in this case tortured and inflicted unspeakable harm on their victims,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said.
The men are scheduled to plead guilty to the state charges on Aug. 14., according to deputy state attorney general, Mary-Helen Wall, NPR reported.
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Source: Black Enterprise
