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SIX former Mississippi police officers, including some calling themselves “the goon squad,” pleaded guilty on Thursday to a racist assault on two black men that ended with an officer shooting one man in the mouth.
Court documents show that the officers, all of them white, entered a house without a warrant on January 24, assaulting the men with a sex toy and using stun guns and other objects to abuse them.
After one victim was shot and wounded in a “mock execution,” documents say the officers conspired to plant and tamper with evidence instead of providing medical aid.
The Justice Department launched its civil rights probe in February.
The Mississippi attorney general’s office announced on Thursday it had filed state charges against the six former officers, for assault, conspiracy and obstruction of justice.
Five former Rankin County Sheriff’s Department employees pleaded guilty, including Christian Dedmon, Hunter Elward, Brett McAlpin, Jeffrey Middleton and Daniel Opdyke.
Joshua Hartfield, a former Richland police officer who was off duty when he participated in the raid, also pleaded guilty.
United States Attorney General Merrick Garland said: “The defendants in this case tortured and inflicted unspeakable harm on their victims.”
He added that they “egregiously violated the civil rights of citizens who they were supposed to protect.”
