Deputies are accused of beating and sexually assaulting black men fired by the Mississippi sheriff

Officers accused of beating and sexually assaulting two black men before shooting one of them in the mouth, prompting a federal civil rights investigation, have been fired, a Mississippi sheriff announced Tuesday.

The announcement comes months after Michael Corey Jenkins and his friend Eddie Terrell Parker said six officers from the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department broke into a home without a search warrant. The men said officers beat them, assaulted them with a sex toy and repeatedly shocked them with Tasers for about 90 minutes during the Jan. 24 episode, Jenkins and Parker said.

Attorneys representing Jenkins and Parker held a virtual news conference Wednesday and acknowledged the firings but said they would not be satisfied “until justice is served for these families.” They are calling for criminal charges to be filed against the six police officers.

Jenkins said one of the officers put a gun in his mouth and then fired, causing him to suffer serious injuries to his face, tongue and jaw.

What happened to the officers involved?

Rankin County Sheriff Bryan Bailey announced Tuesday that the officers involved in the incident had been fired, but he would not name the fired officers or say how many police officers were fired. Bailey declined to answer any further questions about the January episode.

“Due to recent developments, including the findings of our internal investigation, all deputies still employed in this department have been terminated,” Bailey said at a news conference. “We understand that the alleged actions of these deputies have undermined public trust. Rest assured that we will work diligently to restore that trust.”

Bailey’s announcement also follows an Associated Press investigation that found that several deputies involved in the incident were also linked to at least four violent encounters with Black men since 2019, in which two people died and another suffered permanent injuries. Each of the four encounters involved officers assigned to the sheriff’s office’s Special Response Team, a tactical unit whose members receive advanced training.

What did the victims’ lawyers say?

Malik Shabazz, an attorney for the two men in the January raid, said Wednesday that Bailey had fired or accepted the resignations of five deputies.

“We acknowledge today that Brian Bailey has made a small amount of progress, but under his leadership we have experienced one of the worst incidents of police brutality that sets the standard for police misconduct,” Shabazz said.

Shabazz said Jenkins and Parker were upset that the deputies’ names were not publicly released and the identity and location of the sixth police officer involved was unknown.

He blamed Bailey for a “pattern of cover-up.”

Michael Corey Jenkins’ mother, Mary Jenkins, said Wednesday that the unnamed fired officers should be prosecuted and barred from working for other law enforcement agencies.

“They are here to project and serve, but who will protect us from them?” Jenkins said. “You are unfit. They treated our children like they weren’t human.”

Trent Walker, a Mississippi attorney representing the families, asked Bailey to release the names of all deputies involved, including the sixth person who he believes may have worked for another agency.

“If they were involved enough to be fired, there is no reason to continue to cover for them by not releasing their names,” Walker said, accusing the officers of starting a cover-up with an inaccurate police report.

“They started covering up that night,” he said, adding that it would have taken the department months to fire the officers.

Officers said the raid was prompted by a report of drug activity at the home. Police and court records obtained by the AP revealed the identities of two officers in the Jenkins raid: Hunter Elward and Christian Dedmon. It was not immediately clear whether any of the lawmakers had attorneys who could comment on their behalf.

Craig Slay, attorney for the Rankin County Board of Supervisors, declined to comment on the firings.

An officer is said to have been involved in the death of Damien Cameron

A grand jury declined to indict Elward following the in-custody death of Damien Cameron in 2021. Cameron’s family claims police officers knelt on his back and neck for several minutes at the scene.

Elward and another deputy were responders to the fatal shooting of Pierre Woods in 2019. In 2020, another Black man, Carvis Johnson, sued the department, accusing Dedmon of putting a gun in his mouth during a 2019 drug raid .

Civil rights investigation launched into Rankin County Sheriff’s Department

The Justice Department opened a civil rights investigation into the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department following the incident.

There is no bodycam footage of the episode. Mississippi law does not require authorities to use body-worn devices. Records obtained by the AP show that the Tasers used by deputies were turned on, turned off or used dozens of times in a period of about 65 minutes before Jenkins was shot.

Jenkins and Parker have also filed a federal civil rights lawsuit seeking $400 million in damages.

Community activists get involved

Marquell Bridges, head of the Mississippi-based nonprofit Building Bridges for Community Unity and Progress, said he was pleased to see the officials involved fired. And he is confident that charges and convictions will follow, especially given the speed with which the federal government has intervened.

Bridges said he hopes Jenkins and Parker’s case will help bring justice to Cameron’s family and others who “haven’t gotten the attention they deserve.”

“It’s an epidemic,” he said. “It’s just a corrupt system that we fight from top to bottom, and the higher you go, the more corruption.”

Contribution: The Associated Press

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Mississippi deputies accused of mistreating black men fired by sheriff