December 5, 2023
Mississippi Sheriff’s Policy Change Comes Far Too Late After Police Brutality Rocked The County
Bailey's proposed list of changes includes hiring an internal affairs investigator, requiring his officers to wear body cameras, and creating an online submission page for complaints from civilians.
Rankin County (MS) Sheriff Bryan Bailey announced changes to departmental policy on Dec. 1, prompting a lawyer for the victims of an attack carried out by a group of officers who called themselves “The Goon Squad” to take issue.
Malik Shabazz, the lawyer representing Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker, was quick to point out that Bailey’s move was likely spurred by self-preservation. According to U.S. News & World Report, Bailey’s proposed list of changes includes hiring an internal affairs investigator, requiring his officers to wear body cameras, and creating an online submission page for complaints from civilians.
Bailey claimed the changes were made due to the “inappropriate conduct” of his deputies, but Shabazz claimed they were made to avoid accountability in a civil lawsuit and to stall a federal probe into Bailey’s department.
“Why now, Sheriff Bailey?” Shabazz told the Associated Press. “Is it because the sheriff’s department has been exposed as a bastion of depravity?” Shabazz also pointed out that before the alleged torture of Jenkins, the department “did not have even a quasi-independent overseer to investigate excessive force claims.”
Bailey previously attempted to argue that qualified immunity should be enough to keep him from being liable in the suit from Jenkins and Parker. Though he did admit that the reported behavior of “The Goon Squad” was deplorable, Bailey did not appear to want to accept accountability for what five of his deputies were allegedly involved in carrying out.
Shabazz characterized the behavior of the group as an extension of Bailey’s lax leadership, telling the Associated Press, “What happened in January with Mr. Jenkins and Mr. Parker was not an isolated incident. It was merely the crescendo of the violent culture that the man at the helm, at minimum, allowed to exist.”
In February, according to the AP, the United States Justice Department announced that it would open a federal investigation into possible civil rights violations committed by Bailey’s department. The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation also announced it would be looking into the attack allegedly carried out against Jenkins and Parker.
In a scathing joint report from Mississippi Today and the New York Times, reporters cataloged years’ worth of reports detailing incidents from a department initiated by the so-called “Goon Squad” that likely would have carried on unchecked if not for the January incident involving Jenkins and Parker.
According to WAPT, the federal government released a statement on Dec 4 asking residents to share information about any abuse that might have occurred at the hands of Rankin County officers.
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