They tell me that the best way to pull a Band-Aid from the skin is to grab a firm grip and then snatch it off in one quick motion. Well. This removal of the Band-Aid won’t be so fast yet I imagine it will be just as painful. Though most of my news is limited to one local channel and CNN, I have some thoughts about these abrasions, scrapes, cuts, and deep gashes going on out there in “civilized” free society. I’ve brought my first aid kit as I might need Band-Aids to stanch the blood flow.
First, let’s consider the story out of Pennsylvania called the “Chester Trio.” These three men have served 25-plus years in prison even though DNA has cleared them of the crime. Hmm? Second, a man named Nichols was killed in Tennessee by those Black undercover tactical officers who, by the way, were found guilty and acquitted. Talk about a goddamn wound in real bad need of a Band-Aid, hell, several at that, because if you watch the video, it will cut deep into your psyche in many ways. Ouch! Then, we have a story out of Illinois, where undercover tactical officers claim to have stopped a young Black man for a seat belt violation. When the officers surrounded the vehicle in Illinois, they had the driver roll down his window, and the officer’s first question was, “What are you doing?” So the young man rolls up his window as the officer(s) is yelling for him not to roll it up with their guns drawn and no officer deemed it necessary to yell that they were Chicago police officers before they opened fire on the young man, shooting off approximately 91 shots in 49 seconds, killing him. A glaring detail was that the vehicle’s window that had been rolled up—as they had asked him to roll it down—was heavily tinted to make it difficult for anyone to see inside, yet he was stopped for seat belt violation. Hmm? Who needs a Band-Aid when they got fucking x-ray vision.
There might be more to these stories than what I’ve described above, but I don’t have proper means and ways to get more information. I can only access what happens to be playing on the prison TV, and my prison’s postal service department is wholly inadequate, so I am unable to follow any particular story. But I am sure that you can google or bing or whatever and find these stories fairly easily to read and watch firsthand. I am mentioning these three events so I can stitch them into what happened in Pearl, Mississippi, in January 2023, and the group of men who quickly became known as the Rankin County “goon squad.” This shit cuts way too deep into my personal experiences with the Natchez, Mississippi, Adams County “goon squad” that put me on death row in March 1994. So yeah, let’s just say I have (Black) skin in this game. I’m still trying to find a Band-Aid for this festering wound.
Listen. I hear people who are pro-police say that not every police officer is corrupt and criminal, and I tend to agree with that. I’ve had the honor of meeting some good officers. However—and I want to make myself clear about this, so listen a little closer, yea—in police departments such as those I’ve mentioned, these corruption(s) plainly show that the bad officers are many and are within close proximity to those good officers. I won’t state as fact that these good ones are in cahoots with those bad ones, but I will say that silence is complicity and not as complicated as people make it out to be. If you are an officer and you know criminals are within your department, yet you do nothing to stop and hinder their behavior(s), you are just as guilty of the acts the bad officers are committing when you keep silent and turn a blind eye. Under Mississippi law, if you are with someone and a crime is committed, you are held to the same liability and account as the person who committed the crime. There is no exception, and ignorance of the law is no excuse, according to the law. Well, unless you just happen to be these fucking policemen and prosecutors, whom our judges have decided to sheild with this immunity shit.
A friend of mine sent me an article titled “Six former Mississippi law officers sentenced in state court for torture of 2 Black men.” This thing was published on April 10, 2024, out of Brandon, Mississippi.
The article begins: “Already sentenced to federal prison, six former Mississippi law enforcement officers who pleaded guilty to a long list of state and federal charges for torturing two Black men were sentenced Wednesday in State Court.”
The six former law enforcement officers/convicted criminals are:
Brett McAlpin (53) Christian Dedmon (29)
Jeffrey Middleton (46) Daniel Opdyke (28)
Hunter Elward (31) Joshua Hartfield (32)
They were accused and charged with the following acts against Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker:
Breaking & Entering, Home Invasion
Terroristic Acts & Racial Hate
Aggravated Assault & Attempted Murder
Kidnapping, Torture, Rape (Sodomy)
Lurid & Indecent Behaviors
Premeditated Conspiracy to Commit and Cover Up Acts
They were allowed to plead guilty and be sentenced for these two crimes:
Obstruction of Justice
Conspiracy to Hinder Prosecution
Yes. Yes, I know. One or two of those listed crimes are enough to put a motherfucker like me in prison for life without the possibility of parole. All of them combined, I’ll be damn lucky if they don’t try to give me a death sentence. Oh! That’s right! I do have a fucking death sentence without a goddamn shred of evidence linking me to the crime and based solely on a jailhouse lying child rapist and a police department led by detectives sleeping with the woman who addmitted to involvement in the crime yet accused me of doing it. Yet these oath-breaking criminals and thugs are allowed to simply walk away from what U.S. District Judge Tom Lee called “egregious & despicable” acts and what the top law enforcement attorney, General Merrick Garland, called committing a “heinous attack on citizens they had sworn an oath to protect.”
This article hit very close to home with me and my struggles with Mississippi’s criminal and judicial system. It whitewashes and blatantly disregards these ex-officers’ criminal acts. They get a slap on the wrist, while I’ve been fighting prosecutors for over three decades as they’re lying, withholding case files and evidence, and seeking to execute me with no proof of my guilt whatsoever.
I watched the CNN program on the day the six corrupt criminals were marched inside the courtroom one by one to be sentenced to state prison time. Notably, the jail uniforms they wore had the name of which jail they were being held in blacked out with duct tape or the uniform top was worn inside-out to block the jail’s name. Even now, just as when they served in the law enforcement department(s), the system we live under protects these people’s identity and status instead of parading them around in chains and shackles to and from court as they did to me. When I was (wrongfully) arrested, newspapers proclaimed my guilt with unfavorable photos of me walking between rows of police on one side and deputies on the other as they lined up the streets and courthouse steps, making me appear monstrous and inhuman as they named what jail I would be held in and the date, location, and time of my next court appearance. As the poor, unfortunate people of Mississippi say, I wish I could have been “so blessed and lucky” as these goons. Must be nice.
The article goes on to say that
“The six white former Mississippi law enforcement officers who attacked Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker in January 2023 had already been sentenced to federal prison terms ranging from about 10-40 years. In March, U.S. District Judge Tom Lee called their actions ‘egregious and despicable’ as he gave sentences near the top of the federal guidelines to five of the six men.”
Then,
“Rankin County Circuit Judge Steve Ratcliff on Wednesday gave the men years-long state sentences that were shorter than the amount of time in federal prison that they had already received. Time served for the state convictions will run concurrently, or at the same time, as the federal sentences, and the men will serve their time in federal penitentiaries.”
I am stunned into silence for a minute or two before outrage takes over. “What the fuck!” I didn’t have any clue that federal and state time could be run concurrently, but according to this article (even though they don’t explicitly state this) these six criminals will not spend a day, not one fucking day, in a state prison. They will have served their state sentencing terms before they are released from federal prison. Federal prison is a country club compared to state prison. Talk about being pampered.
Lest we forget this: Listen.
These six convicted criminals premeditated to conspire, commit, and cover up a home invasion by breaking and entering. They were in the throes of racial hate when they carried out terroristic acts by kidnapping two men whom they aggravatedly assaulted, tortured, raped, and attempted to murder while performing and exhibiting lurid and indecent behaviors. Our “just” and “fair” legal system deemed it proper that they should only plead guilty to obstruction of justice and conspiracy to hinder prosecution; this same “just” and “fair” legal system then ensures that they spend the smallest amount of time possible without ever stepping into a state prison. Yeah. Ain’t enough goddamn Band-Aids in Mississippi to cover these wounds and cuts.
Honestly, there is so much in this story that I could go off on for days telling you all the bullshit. But I’ll have to put some of these pieces of the story on ice, if you don’t mind, so that we can actually get through this thing. Brett McAlpin, one of the blessed and lucky criminals in this case, was the fourth-highest-ranking officer in the department. “This terror began on January 24, 2023[…] when a white person phoned […] Brett McAlpin and complained that two Black men were staying with a white woman […] in Brandon, Miss. […] They called themselves ‘the goon squad’ […] they handcuffed Jenkins and Parker and poured milk, alcohol and chocolate syrup over their faces while mocking them with racial slurs, then in a mocked execution, Elward shot Jenkins in the mouth, lacerating his tongue and breaking his jaw. They then […] agreed to plant drugs on Jenkins & Parker.” These planted drugs resulted in false charges that stood against these two men for months. McAlpin and Middleton, the oldest in this gang of thugs, threatened to kill other officers if they spoke up.
Think about this. First, some distraught and deranged white person simply calls the police because they don’t like the looks of Black men staying with a White woman. Then, this “good ole boy” McAlpin, who is a rank-and-file, 4th-in-line inside the department and is apparently well known for his hatred toward Black people, Black males specifically, can easily tell this deputy Dedmon to simply send out text messages to a group of White deputies who like to call themselves “The Goon Squad.” Consider the age of these goons ranging from 53-28 yrs old; I am thinking that cultural racism and violence is heavily steeped within that department. This culture must live out in recruitment and indoctrination practices, so that McAlpin and Middleton can threaten to kill any officer who spoke up. So I’m thinking Ole Opdyke, one of the blessed and lucky six criminals, didn’t get that message about being killed if he squealed.
Opdyke was the first to admit what they did and showed investigators a WhatsApp text thread where they discussed their plans. Hartfield, a Richland police officer, who by the way was off duty, gets this text then goes to meet up with this group of White deputies to plan how they would commit these atrocities on two Black men. Hartfield’s actions scream that this violent, rampant behavior not only exists with the Rankin Co. Sheriff Department, but possibly also throughout the Richland PD. These sadistic people claim they expressed remorse and apologized. Their attorneys said they became ensnared in a culture of corruption encouraged by leaders in the department. Rankin County Sheriff Bryan Bailey said they had gone rogue but revealed no details when he announced they had been fired.
There is a saying I grew up hearing: “talk about what you know.” I take that to mean that if you haven’t lived it and done it, then you should keep your fucking mouth closed and your lips sealed, understand. As this applies to rogue criminal groups within Mississippi law enforcement departments, hands down, I can say that I know what I’m talking about. Every day I wake up and clean my deep wounds before I change the bandages. Goddamn bleeding never stops.
