Ex-Deputy Describes Rampant Violence by Mississippi ‘Goon Squad’

U.S.|Ex-Deputy Describes Rampant Violence by Mississippi ‘Goon Squad’

In a series of interviews from prison, a former Mississippi sheriff’s deputy described for the first time how he and others in his department regularly entered homes without warrants, beat people to get information and illegally seized evidence that helped convict people of drug crimes.

His statements corroborate many aspects of an investigation by The New York Times and Mississippi Today that uncovered a two-decade reign of terror by Rankin County sheriff’s deputies, including those who called themselves the “Goon Squad.” They also shed new light on the deputies’ tactics and the scope of their violent and illegal behavior.

The former deputy, Christian Dedmon, who once led the department’s narcotics division, told Mississippi Today in emails and phone calls that drug raids occurred in suburban Rankin County, outside Jackson, almost every week for years.

He said deputies regularly brutalized and humiliated suspects to get them to share information during the raids. And he said they often seized evidence without a legally required warrant, raising questions about possible wrongful convictions in hundreds of narcotics cases stemming from the raids.

For some raids, he said, the deputies would falsely describe emergency circumstances that gave them cover for searching without a warrant; for others, they would falsely claim that evidence was in plain sight.

He said deputies were entering homes without warrants so often that in 2022 a senior detective warned him that prosecutors in the district attorney’s office had noticed and had demanded they stop.