Two former Mississippi police officers, Hunter Elward and Jeffrey Middleton, were in the United States on Tuesday condemned 20 years and 17 years and six months in prison respectively for a racist attack on two black men. The sentences against four other former officers who participated in the violence will be handed down on Wednesday and Thursday. All six had pleaded guilty to various offenses in August 2023.
In January 2023, the six officers entered a house without a warrant where two black men, Michael Jenkins and Eddie Parker, were located. They insulted them with racist terms, beat them, tasered them and sexually assaulted them for about 90 minutes. Elward pointed a gun at Jenkins’ head to simulate an execution, but accidentally fired, hitting him in the mouth and damaging his tongue and jaw. At that point the officers tried to plant drugs and weapons on the spot in order to incriminate the two men and justify the attack.
Three of the six former officers also pleaded guilty in a separate case, involving the assault of a white man after a traffic stop, which occurred a few months before the events for which they have already been convicted.