Attorneys for Goon Squad victims respond to DOJ investigation

RANKIN COUNTY, Miss. (WJTV) – Attorneys for the two Black men, who were tortured 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, responded to the Justice Department’s investigation into the Rankin County Sheriff’s Office.

The DOJ is investigating whether the sheriff’s office engaged in a pattern of excessive force or if it’s used racially discriminatory policing practices.

Attorneys Malik Shabazz and Trent Walker represented the victims, Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker. The two men were tortured by the so-called “Goon Squad” in January 2023.

Shabazz said an open pattern and practice against the sheriff’s office is appreciated.

“This is welcome news to those that are suffering in the county and the state of Mississippi, who want to know that where Rankin County has failed to act and where the state of Mississippi has failed to act against police brutality and excessive force, that there is some remedy,” he said.

The attorneys said they expect to file more lawsuits on behalf of other people who say they were brutalized by officers from the Rankin County Sheriff’s Office. Shabazz and Walker sued the Rankin County Sheriff’s Office last year on behalf of Jenkins and Parker. The suit is still pending and seeks $400 million.

Shabazz and Walker have called on Sheriff Bryan Bailey to resign, as have some local residents.

Michael Corey Jenkins, left, and Eddie Terrell Parker walk toward the Thad Cochran United States Courthouse in Jackson, Miss., Thursday, March 21, 2024, for sentencing on the fifth of the six former Mississippi Rankin County law enforcement officers who committed numerous acts of racially motivated, violent torture on them in 2023. The six former law officers pleaded guilty to a number of federal charges for torturing them and their sentencing began Tuesday in federal court. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

The two attorneys said Monday that county supervisors should censure Bailey. They also said they think brutality in the department started before Bailey became sheriff in 2012. And they said Rankin County’s insurance coverage of $2.5 million a year falls far short of what the county should pay to victims of brutality.

“There needs to be an acknowledgement on the part of the sheriff’s department, on the part of Bailey and the part of the county that allowing these officers and this department to run roughshod for as long as it did had a negative toll on the citizens of the county,” Walker said.

The six members of the Goon Squad were sentenced in March, receiving terms of 10 to 40 years.

U.S. District Judge Tom Lee called the former officers’ actions “egregious and despicable” and imposed sentences near the top of federal guidelines to five of the six.

The sheriff’s department said it will fully cooperate with the federal investigation and that it has increased transparency by posting its policies and procedures online.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.