It isn’t often that Black victims receive some form of justice in Mississippi, but a federal judge in the Magnolia State delivered lengthy prison sentences to six white former law enforcement officers last week. In our coverage of the story in January of last year, two Black men were tortured by the officers, who referred to themselves as the “Goon Squad.”
Well, the goon squad is good and gone behind bars for at least 10 years for some of them, although not long enough for some Black residents. Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker, the two men who were tortured, are suing Rankin County and Sheriff Bryan Bailey for $400 million. They are also demanding that the sheriff resign.
“None of this would have existed if Bryan Bailey [the sheriff] did his job and was not complicit,” said Malik Shabazz, one of the attorneys representing Jenkins and Parker.
When we learned that the sheriff had filed for “qualified immunity,” it brought to mind the series we conducted on the subject, which is a legal doctrine that law enforcement officers use to avoid liability for abuses unless they violated “clearly established” laws.
“Sheriff BRYAN BAILEY directly participates in acts of excessive force with the deputies he supervises,” the lawsuit states, adding that he “has been denied qualified immunity by this court” previously.
In their suit, Jenkins and Parker cite another case in 2019, when Rankin County deputies fatally shot Pierre Woods, a Black man who suffered from mental illness, during a standoff. According to a judge, Bailey was present at the scene and failed to command his officers to stop shooting during the incident.
These encounters remind the nation, and certainly Black Mississipians, of the horrific deaths of too many Black people in the state’s history.
Shabazz, who acquired activist and legal credentials here in Harlem, said he considered the sentencing of the six officers a historic moment in the state’s history, but that deeper reforms are needed.
“I find that there is police corruption everywhere, but I find an absence of accountability especially in Mississippi,” he said.
In her song “Mississippi Goddam,” pianist/vocalist Nina Simone had something to say about the state in far more graphic terms.