Published 2024-03-21 22.56
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full screen One of the police’s victims, Eddie Terrell Parker, celebrates the verdicts with his aunt Linda Rawls. Photo: Rogelio V Solis/AP/TT
All six former police officers who were accused of torturing two black men in the state of Mississippi in the USA have been sentenced to long prison terms.
On Thursday, the last two white men were sentenced to 27 and 10 years in prison, respectively, for what the judge called “horrible and despicable” acts.
Earlier this week, the four other former police officers were sentenced to between 17.5 and 40 years in prison. All six pleaded guilty and this week’s court hearings concerned only the penalty.
The police were called in January 2023 after a neighbor complained that the two black men were staying in a house together with a white woman. After kicking in the door of the house where the men lived, the police handcuffed the men and then beat them for several hours.
The ex-cops, all white, called themselves the “Goon squad”. The man who was now sentenced to 27 years in prison has been singled out as a mafia-like leader and as a father figure to the other five, who are all younger. The 53-year-old was not on duty on the evening in question and was not in uniform when he arrived at the house.
The two victims are still grieving after the torture, which ended with one of them being shot through the mouth and throat. Then the police officers allegedly hid and destroyed evidence and talked to each other about how the sequence of events should be described instead of giving the bleeding man first aid.
“The defendants hit and kicked the men, used a stun gun against them 17 times, forced liquid into them and abused them with a dildo,” reads a press release from when the trial was underway last year.