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How a ‘Goon Squad’ of Deputies Got Away With Years of Brutality

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Brian Howey and Nate Rosenfield investigated dozens of arrests made by Rankin County deputies to report this article, which is part of a series by The Times’s Local Investigations Fellowship examining the power of sheriffs’ offices in Mississippi.

For nearly two decades, a loose band of sheriff’s deputies roamed impoverished neighborhoods across a central Mississippi county, meting out their own version of justice.

Narcotics detectives and patrol officers, some who called themselves the Goon Squad, barged into homes in the middle of the night, accusing people inside of dealing drugs. Then they handcuffed or held them at gunpoint and tortured them into confessing or providing information, according to dozens of people who say they endured or witnessed the assaults.

They described violence that sometimes went on for hours and seemed intended to strike terror into the deputies’ targets.

In the pursuit of drug arrests, deputies of the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department shocked Robert Jones with a Taser in 2018 while he lay submerged in a flooded ditch, then rammed a stick down his throat until he vomited blood, he said.

During a raid the same year, deputies choked Mitchell Hobson with a lamp cord and waterboarded him to simulate drowning, he said, then beat him until the walls were spattered with his blood. That raid took place at the home of Rick Loveday, a sheriff’s deputy in a neighboring county, who said he was dragged half-naked from his bed at gunpoint, before deputies jabbed a flashlight threateningly at his buttocks and then pummeled him relentlessly.

The string of violence might have continued unchecked if not for one near-fatal raid in January.

According to a Justice Department investigation, deputies broke into the home of two Black men, Michael Jenkins and Eddie Parker, shocked them with Tasers and threatened to rape them. Deputy Hunter Elward shoved the barrel of a gun into Mr. Jenkins’s mouth, not realizing a bullet was in the chamber, and pulled the trigger. Mr. Jenkins was grievously injured, the incident was thrust into the national spotlight, and in August five deputies and a police officer pleaded guilty to criminal charges.

Top row: former Rankin County sheriff’s deputies Hunter Elward, Christian Dedmon and Brett McAlpin; bottom row: former deputies Jeffrey Middleton and Daniel Opdyke, and former Richland police officer Joshua Hartfield. All pleaded guilty this year to federal and state charges. Credit: Rogelio V. Solis/Associated Press

Rankin County Sheriff Bryan Bailey said in a press conference this summer that he was stunned to learn of the “horrendous crimes” committed by his deputies. “Never in my life did I think it would happen in this department.”

But an investigation by The New York Times and the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting at Mississippi Today reveals a history of blatant and brutal incidents stretching back to at least 2004.

Reporters examined hundreds of pages of court records and sheriff’s office reports and interviewed more than 50 people who say they witnessed or experienced torture at the hands of the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department. What emerged was a pattern of violence that was neither confined to a small group of deputies nor hidden from department leaders.

Many of those who said they experienced violence filed lawsuits or formal complaints, detailing their encounters with the department. A few said they had contacted Sheriff Bailey directly, only to be ignored.

The Times and Mississippi Today identified 20 deputies who were present at one or more of the incidents — many assigned to narcotics or the night-shift patrol — who were present at one or more incidents.

Christian Dedmon, Rankin’s former narcotics detective, was involved in eight incidents, department records show. Also present for at least one arrest: former Undersheriff Paul Holley and former Deputy Dean Scott, who is now police chief in Pearl, Miss.

Brett McAlpin, former chief investigator for the department, was involved in at least 13 of the arrests and was repeatedly described by witnesses as leading the raids. He was named in at least four lawsuits and six complaints going back to 2010. Even so, Sheriff Bailey named him investigator of the year in 2013. This year, he pleaded guilty to criminal charges for his role in the January raid.

A federal investigation found that deputies broke into the home of Michael Jenkins and Eddie Parker, shocked them with Tasers, threatened to rape them and shot Mr. Jenkins, severely wounding him. Credit: AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File

Taken together, the reporting shows how Rankin deputies were allowed to operate with impunity, while racking up arrests for relatively minor drug infractions and leaving entire neighborhoods in fear of violent raids.

Among the dozens of allegations reviewed, The Times and Mississippi Today were able to corroborate 17 incidents involving 22 victims based on witness interviews, medical records, photographs of injuries and other documents.

In nearly half the cases, Taser logs obtained from the department through a public records request helped corroborate the allegations. Electronically recorded dates and times of Taser triggers lined up with witness accounts and suggested that deputies repeatedly shocked people for longer than is considered safe.

The Taser logs also suggest that the scope of the violence may extend much farther.

Rankin County Sheriff Bryan Bailey won re-election this fall, running unopposed, despite scrutiny on his office as the Justice Department investigated his deputies. Photo Credit: Rogelio V. Solis/Associated Press

At least 32 times over the past decade, Rankin deputies fired their Tasers more than five times in under an hour, activating them for at least 30 seconds in total — double the recommended limit. Experts in Taser use who reviewed the logs called these incidents highly suspicious.

“This is not typical Taser use,” said Seth Stoughton, faculty director of the Excellence in Policing & Public Safety program at the University of South Carolina. “There’s just no justification for that.”

It is impossible to tell from the logs alone whether a series of shocks were aimed at one target, and whether they all made contact. Incident reports by the deputies offer little clarity, because in nearly every case they failed to mention that a Taser was used at all.

Over the past year, The Times and Mississippi Today have investigated how powerful sheriffs in rural Mississippi have dodged accountability in the face of misconduct allegations. The reporting exposed numerous sexual abuse accusations against two sheriffs in counties near Rankin, along with evidence that Sheriff Bailey obtained subpoenas to surveil his girlfriend’s phone calls.

Sheriff Bailey has faced increased scrutiny since the Justice Department began to investigate his deputies’ conduct this year, and the NAACP and local activist groups have called for his resignation. After 12 years as sheriff, he was re-elected in November when he ran unopposed.

The deputies accused of being involved in violent arrests declined to comment or did not respond to repeated requests for interviews.

It is not always clear what actions individual deputies took during the incidents. Witnesses often did not know their names and many of the deputies did not wear uniforms or name tags during the raids.

Jason Dare, a lawyer for the department, declined to comment on The Times and Mississippi Today’s findings.

During a brief phone interview on Sunday, Sheriff Bailey repeatedly declined to comment. Told that several high-ranking deputies were involved in arrests that had sparked accusations of brutal treatment, he said, “I have 240 employees, there’s no way I can be with them each and every day.”

On Tuesday, the department announced that it had updated its internal policies and that deputies would receive training on federal civil rights laws.

A statement from the department that referred to the January assault without acknowledging a broader pattern said, “Even though the prior actions were abnormal and extreme, we will make every effort to ensure that they do not occur in the future.”

A home remains abandoned following fire damage in the Robinhood neighborhood near Brandon, Miss., on Nov. 24, 2023. The previous occupants allege the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department frequently harassed them at the property. Credit: Rory Doyle for The New York Times

New Problems, Old Tactics

For most of its history, Rankin County was a rural area dominated by farmland and forests.

That began to change when white flight reached the capital city of Jackson in the 1960s and Rankin’s fields gave way to subdivisions and strip malls.

But tucked among the stately homes and manicured lawns, some of the county’s most impoverished residents live in run-down trailers and makeshift shacks, a few without running water or electricity.

These neighborhoods were hit hard in the early 2000s as meth — cheap, highly addictive and easy to manufacture in isolated places — spread across rural America like wildfire.

Local sheriffs, even in small departments, set up special narcotics units and joined state and federal task forces in the War on Drugs. The Rankin County Sheriff’s Department responded by targeting low-income communities and policing them relentlessly.

In an area called Robinhood, residents said home raids became routine and it felt as if they couldn’t go to the corner store without being stopped and searched.

“Once they start picking on you,” said a former resident, Matasha Harris, “they will not leave you alone.”

Though Rankin deputies appear to have targeted people based on suspected drug use, not race — most of their accusers were white — their tactics could have been pulled from the Jim Crow era, when sheriffs and their deputies harassed and beat Black Southerners and civil rights activists.

During that period, deputies coerced false confessions, sometimes using cattle prods or “the water cure”: pouring water into suspects’ nostrils until they complied.

Priscilla Perkins, co-president of the John & Vera Mae Perkins Foundation, a nonprofit based in Jackson, Miss., that promotes racial reconciliation, said the Goon Squad’s acts reminded her of the reign of terror against civil rights activists that often involved law enforcement officers.

“It’s the hidden shame of Mississippi and America,” she said. “People are still trying to cover it up.”

Among the officers of that era accused of beating Black residents was Lloyd Jones, a state trooper who would become sheriff in nearby Simpson County.

A Justice Department investigation long after his death found that he had bragged to a colleague about fatally shooting a Black man, Benjamin Brown, in the back during a 1967 standoff between police officers and civil rights protesters.

Benjamin Brown being carried away after he was shot by the police in Jackson, Miss. in May 1967. At left, Lloyd Jones, a state trooper who would later be implicated in the shooting, leads the group down a street. Credit: Bettmann, via Getty Images

In 1970, Mr. Jones participated in the beating of the Rev. John Perkins in the Rankin County jail, which culminated with a deputy jabbing a fork up his nose, according to the pastor and witnesses who testified against the officers.

As sheriff, he gave Bryan Bailey his first job in law enforcement.

“He is on my life’s wall of gratitude and had a huge impact on who I am,” Sheriff Bailey wrote on Facebook in 2015. “Not a day goes by that I don’t think about him or recall something that he taught me.”

Sheriff Bailey called him a mentor. But years before, Simpson County residents had begun calling him something else: “Goon” Jones.

Portraits of Rankin County sheriffs over time are displayed inside the department. Under the current sheriff, deputies were allowed to operate with impunity for years. Credit: Rory Doyle for The New York Times

Scope of Abuse

It’s unclear when Rankin County deputies adopted their nickname, but last year, they ordered commemorative coins emblazoned with cartoonish gangsters and the words “Lt. Middleton’s Goon Squad.” Lt. Jeffrey Middleton was the squad’s supervisor. He is among the five deputies who pleaded guilty to criminal charges stemming from the January raid on Mr. Parker and Mr. Jenkins.

A Justice Department investigation this year found that Rankin County deputies chose the name Goon Squad “because of their willingness to use excessive force and not report it.”

The investigation found that Mr. McAlpin, along with a narcotics detective, Christian Dedmon, and Goon Squad members burst into Mr. Parker’s home, tortured and humiliated the men while demanding to know where drugs were, and then disposed of the evidence.

Across the 17 cases for which reporters found corroborating witnesses and evidence, accusers described similar tactics by deputies, almost always over small drug busts.

Deputies held people down while punching and kicking them or shocked them repeatedly with Tasers. They shoved gun barrels into people’s mouths. Three people said deputies had waterboarded them until they thought they would suffocate. Five said deputies had told them to move out of the county.

Many of the targets teetered on the edge of homelessness and were caught with a few grams of meth or with only drug paraphernalia — a glass pipe or used syringe. Several people sat in jail for days or weeks only to have their charges dropped.

A commemorative coin that Goon Squad members carried. One side shows gangsters and name-checks a supervisor.

The largest bust among the incidents examined was for a $420 heroin sale.

In 2018, a confidential informant arranged an $80 meth deal at Jerry Manning’s home. Mr. Manning, who denies being part of the sale, said he heard deputies burst into his trailer and scream his name.

When he went to investigate, deputies pinned him to the floor. They said they wanted to test their new Tasers on him to see which hurt more, he said.

“They got me in my private parts, they got me in my head,” Mr. Manning said. “They kept tasing and tasing and tasing.”

Taser logs indicate that two of the nine deputies involved that night, James Rayborn and Cody Grogan, together triggered their Tasers at least 15 times during the two-and-a-half-hour raid.

As the deputies ransacked his home looking for drugs, Mr. Manning said, they wrapped a pair of jeans around his head and punched him repeatedly in the face before using a blowtorch to melt a metal nutcracker handle onto his bare leg as he screamed. On Mr. McAlpin’s orders, Mr. Manning said, a deputy then forced him to sit, pulled a belt around his neck and yanked it upward, choking him until he believed he would suffocate.

Mr. McAlpin, whom the sheriff named investigator of the year in 2013, was identified as a leader of Goon Squad raids. Photo Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today

Three other men in the trailer that night described violent attacks. Garry Curro, a 64-year-old Air Force veteran, said deputies handcuffed, beat and shocked him. Adam Porter says Mr. McAlpin threw him into a glass mirror, then took Mr. Porter’s pocketknife and sliced his pants to ribbons, demanding to know where the drugs were. Mr. Manning’s roommate, James Lynch, said Mr. McAlpin dragged a blowtorch flame across his feet while interrogating him.

People’s accounts of the raids shared striking similarities, beyond the patterns in the violence.

At least 12 of the 17 cases began as Mr. Manning’s did, with a suspect being set up by a confidential informant, someone the deputies had persuaded to stage a drug buy while they waited nearby.

In six cases, people said deputies threatened to continue assaulting them until they disclosed either the name of a drug dealer or the location of drugs. Five people said the deputies ransacked their kitchens and destroyed their food or used it to humiliate them — smashing a cake into a man’s face before arresting him, dumping flour and rice onto a kitchen floor, pouring milk into a freshly cooked dinner. Every Black accuser said deputies had hurled racial slurs at them.

Most of the targets were men in their 30s or 40s with a history of drug use. But in 2009, Mr. McAlpin knocked out 19-year-old Christopher Hillhouse’s tooth with a Maglite, he and his mother say. The next year, deputies beat and shocked Dustin Hale, then 17, until he urinated on himself while his girlfriend watched, he said. When his mother and grandmother went to the county jail to pick him up, they said, they hardly recognized him through the bruises and swelling.

Jeremy Travis Paige alleged in a lawsuit that deputies forced him to arrange drug deals and beat him unconscious. Photo Credit: Rory Doyle for The New York Times Credit: Rory Doyle for The New York Times

The story of Jeremy Travis Paige, who was targeted in 2018, fits a typical pattern described by the accusers.

Mr. Paige, a 41-year-old with several arrests, was pulling up to his home in a working-class neighborhood outside Jackson when he realized deputies were there waiting for him, he said.

He drove away, hoping they wouldn’t notice. But Mr. McAlpin chased him and pulled him over, then deputies beat him unconscious in the intersection, Mr. Paige alleged in a lawsuit against the county.

The suit claimed that he regained consciousness as the deputies dragged him, handcuffed, into his home. Mr. McAlpin and another deputy then pummeled him in the living room for nearly an hour, according to Mr. Paige and a witness who spoke on the condition of anonymity, fearing retribution from the deputies.

In interviews, Mr. Paige said the deputies pulled him into his roommate’s bedroom and sat him upright on the bed, where he felt someone press a knee into his back and stretch a washcloth across his mouth. Then, he said, deputies poured gallon after gallon of water over his face. As he struggled to breathe, he said, one of them pressed a lit cigarette into his thigh.

All the while, they shocked his groin intermittently with Tasers, Mr. Paige said. Taser logs show that one of the four deputies who reported being at the scene triggered his Taser during the arrest.

Mr. Paige’s booking photo, taken at the Rankin County jail in 2018, shows his battered and bruised face after an encounter with deputies. Photo Credit: Rankin County Sheriff’s Office Credit: Rankin County Sheriff's Department

Three people, including Mr. Paige, said they had been shocked not only with gun-shaped Tasers — the type issued by the department — but also with small, rectangular ones, suggesting that some deputies used personal stun guns that were not being tracked.

“They had the devil in them,” Mr. Paige said. “I thought they was going to kill me.”

Deputies ordered him to send Facebook messages to friends asking to buy drugs. He struck out, and the deputies took him to jail.

Before leaving, they stuffed the blood- and water-soaked bedding in trash bags and removed them from the house, Mr. Paige said.

The next day, when Mr. Paige was in jail, his son Trace visited the house. He found evidence of the violence, he said, including a bent bed frame where his father had been held down by deputies and a puddle of blood on the floor.

Pictures taken by Mr. Paige’s roommate show the bed stripped of linens and blood spattered on the wall.

Mr. McAlpin wrote in his report that deputies restrained Mr. Paige after he tried to kick them during the arrest, but the detective did not mention the use of Tasers or other force that might explain the blood.

During Mr. Paige’s trial for drug sale charges, Mr. McAlpin testified that deputies might have injured Mr. Paige when they pulled him out of his car, because he was resisting. He denied hurting Mr. Paige in his home.

Mr. Paige was sentenced to five years in prison. When he sued the sheriff’s department, no lawyer would take his case and he resorted to representing himself. He wrote a letter to the judge explaining that he had only a seventh-grade education.

“I don’t know how to present big words or anything like that,” he wrote. “But I do know the truth.”

After he missed several court deadlines, the judge dismissed his case.

Evidence of the violence inflicted by deputies has been collecting in the sheriff’s department’s computer files for more than two decades. Photo Credit: Rory Doyle for The New York Times Credit: Rory Doyle for The New York Times

Who Knew

Over the years, more than a dozen people have directly confronted Sheriff Bailey and his command staff about the deputies’ brutal methods, according to court records and interviews with accusers and their families.

At least five people have sued the department alleging beatings, chokings and other abuses by deputies associated with the Goon Squad.

The department settled two of those cases. Two others, including Mr. Paige’s, were dismissed over procedural errors by accusers representing themselves.

But the mounting allegations signaled that something was profoundly wrong in the narcotics unit of Sheriff Bailey’s department.

Mr. McAlpin, the department’s former chief investigator who led most of the raids reviewed by reporters, was involved in at least four arrests that prompted lawsuits, court records show.

The family of Brett Gerhart sued the department, saying he had been injured and terrorized during a mistaken raid at the wrong home. Credit: United States District Court in Jackson, Miss.

According to one suit that was settled, Mr. McAlpin kicked 19-year-old Brett Gerhart in the face and pressed a pistol to his temple in 2010 during a mistaken raid at the wrong address. In a 2012 case, tossed out because of missed court deadlines, Gary Michael Frith claimed that he had been beaten and choked in the back of a squad car during a drug bust; records show that Mr. McAlpin was one of the arresting officers.

Mr. McAlpin also figured prominently in complaints lodged with the department. Seven people told reporters they had mailed letters, filed formal complaints or called the sheriff personally to tell him about the abuse they experienced.

Joshua Rushing said he wrote several letters to the department in 2020, after Mr. McAlpin and Mr. Dedmon drove him to an isolated dead-end road and shocked and beat him. He said he never heard back.

Nicole Brock said that when she went to the sheriff’s office to submit a formal complaint against Mr. McAlpin for ransacking her car during a search, he tore up the form, threw it in the garbage and arrested her for a syringe he had found during the car search.

Ms. Brock said she left several messages on Sheriff Bailey’s office phone to report the deputy’s behavior, but he never returned her calls.

Mr. Dare, the department lawyer, declined to provide copies of complaints, saying they were considered personnel records protected by state law. When asked to confirm the existence of the seven complaints described by accusers, he said he could not immediately provide it.

Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, said this long list of complaints and lawsuits should have prompted investigations by the sheriff.

“If you’re getting multiple complaints about the same officers, from different sources, that’s a red flag,” he said. “If you don’t do anything about it, you’re in denial.”

Despite the allegations against him, Mr. McAlpin continued to rise through the ranks of the department, winning Investigator of the Year and eventually being promoted to the top investigator position.

Mitchell Hobson said that during a 2018 raid, deputies choked him with a lamp cord and waterboarded him to simulate drowning. Photo Credit: Rory Doyle for The New York Times

Until this year, the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department did not have anyone assigned full time to handle complaints. Instead, supervisors were responsible for investigating the deputies they oversaw, according to four former employees who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they feared retribution from the department.

Among those supervisors were Mr. McAlpin and Lieutenant Middleton, who both pleaded guilty in August for their roles in the assault of Mr. Jenkins and Mr. Parker.

On Tuesday, Sheriff Bailey announced that the department would allow residents to file complaints against deputies on the department’s website.

Mitchell Hobson’s booking photo. Credit: Rankin County Sheriff’s Department

Beyond the lawsuits and complaints, there were other obvious signs of the violence, including injuries that would have been visible to jail workers and court officials who saw the injured shortly after their encounters.

Hospital records show that Mr. Hobson was treated for a gash over his eye after a 2018 raid in which he says deputies waterboarded him and punched him repeatedly. His face is bandaged in his jail booking photo.

Robert Jones, the man who said deputies rammed a stick down his throat, arrived at the jail with a swollen and mud-streaked face after deputies beat him and threw him into a ditch.

Many of the mug shots from the Rankin County jail feature bandaged faces, swollen cheeks and black eyes associated with drug-related arrests.

But the most glaring evidence of the violence inflicted by deputies has been collecting in the department’s computer files for more than two decades.

The Taser Logs

Every time a Taser is fired, the device keeps a record of it. In Rankin County, deputies upload this data to a computer, compiling detailed departmentwide logs that allow supervisors to monitor deputy Taser use.

The data, reviewed by The Times and Mississippi Today, contained tens of thousands of Taser triggers stretching back 24 years.

The logs supported the accounts of nine people who described being shocked by deputies while handcuffed or held down. In all but three of these cases, the deputies did not report their Taser use, violating department policy.

“I don’t believe I’ve ever come across an agency in which it would be acceptable for an officer to deploy a Taser and not report it in some way,” said Ashley Heiberger, a retired officer and an expert in police use of force.

After several studies linking prolonged Taser exposure to severe medical problems and even death, the Police Executive Research Forum developed national guidelines advising against shocking a person for more than 15 seconds during an encounter.

The logs contain dozens of instances of Tasers being fired for at least double the recommended time limit over the course of an hour. In April 2016, a device assigned to a deputy who participated in Goon Squad raids was triggered nine times in four minutes, delivering 31 seconds of current.

Several experts in police use of force said the logs showed abnormal Taser use that was hard to explain. Seth Stoughton, from the University of South Carolina, said the frequency of the deputies’ Taser triggers suggested they were not using the weapons for their intended purpose: to quickly subdue a combative person.

“It just doesn’t suggest that the Taser is actually being used to induce compliance,” he said.

Christopher Holloway, left, and Sam Carter said they were repeatedly shocked with a Taser during a home raid. Both were charged with paraphernalia and drug possession. Mr. Carter said the raid was the beginning of a string of arrests. Photo Credit: Rory Doyle for The New York Times Credit: Rory Doyle for The New York Times

By comparing the logs to department records, reporters identified four people who claim they were at the receiving end of Taser shocks recorded in the data.

In 2016, Deputy James Rayborn fired his Taser for 20 seconds over the course of 20 minutes during a raid of Samuel Carter’s home.

Mr. Carter, a 64-year-old Army veteran, had had previous run-ins with Rankin sheriff’s deputies over alleged drug use. On the night of the raid, he said, deputies dragged him to his bedroom, shocked him and demanded that he open a safe where they expected to find drugs and cash.

Instead, deputies found a tub of cake frosting he had stashed in the safe to hide from houseguests with a sweet tooth.

Mr. Carter said they became enraged and shocked him again until his leg began to bleed.

Down the hall, Christopher Holloway, a 26-year-old who had been helping Mr. Carter maintain his property, was beaten and shocked until he defecated on himself, he said. Then they dragged him outside and threatened to push him, handcuffed, into Mr. Carter’s pool.

Mr. Holloway and Mr. Carter were charged with paraphernalia and drug possession — Mr. Holloway for marijuana, Mr. Carter for several grams of methamphetamine.

Like many people targeted by Rankin deputies, Mr. Carter said the first raid was just the beginning. Three months later, deputies arrested him again, this time for drinking in front of his home, Mr. Carter said. He was arrested four more times over the next year, department records show, mostly for drug or paraphernalia possession.

Ballooning legal fees left Mr. Carter unable to pay his bills.

“They had the power,” he said. “And they used it.”

Rick Loveday, a sheriff’s deputy in a neighboring county, looks at a picture of his injuries sustained when Rankin County deputies raided his home. Photo Credit: Rory Doyle for The New York Times

‘I Lost My Life’

The Goon Squad has left a long trail of shattered lives in its wake. Some people who said they were brutalized are jolted awake by nightmares after their encounters with deputies. Four said they fled the county for good. Several are serving lengthy prison terms.

In 2015, Ron Shinstock was struggling with a methamphetamine addiction, even as he raised a family with his wife and ran a mechanic shop with his brother.

Everything changed, he said, after Mr. McAlpin led a violent raid of his home, holding his children at gunpoint and forcing him to strip naked in his backyard. The arrest led to a 40-year prison sentence for a $260 meth sale within 1,500 feet of a church.

Mr. Shinstock’s wife left him. He is scheduled to be released in 2056, two months before his 82nd birthday.

“I lost my family, I lost my home,” Mr. Shinstock said. “I lost my life.”

Andrea Dettore moved out of Rankin County after witnessing two raids by its deputies. Photo Credit: Rory Doyle for The New York Times Credit: Rory Doyle for The New York Times

Andrea Dettore, a former resident of Rankin County, witnessed deputies brutalize three people in two incidents. She said she was there in 2018 when the Goon Squad attacked Mr. Loveday, the former deputy, and Mr. Hobson.

During a raid on her own home in January, she said, she heard deputies beat her friend, Robert Grozier, behind a closed door, and saw a deputy, Christian Dedmon, shove a sex toy into his mouth, threatening to shock him with a Taser if he spat it out.

Ms. Dettore and Mr. Grozier were each fined several hundred dollars, and she has since left Rankin County. Mr. Hobson sat in jail for six months before his charges were dropped, and Mr. Loveday lost his job as a sheriff’s deputy. Court records show he was never convicted of a crime.

After Mr. McAlpin arrested Mr. Loveday and accused him of consorting with drug dealers, he ordered him to leave town. Mr. Loveday fled the state, fearing he would be targeted again. He couldn’t forget that night.

“If they did that to me, how many other people have they done it to?” he wondered.

Before he left Mississippi, Mr. Loveday said, he called Sheriff Bailey personally to warn him about his deputies’ behavior.

But Mr. Bailey wouldn’t listen, he said. He called Mr. Loveday a dirty cop and accused him of secretly recording the call.

Then, Mr. Loveday said, “He hung up on me.”

Jerry Mitchell, Ilyssa Daly, Eric Sagara and Irene Casado Sanchez contributed reporting. Kitty Bennett contributed research. This article was reported in partnership with Big Local News at Stanford University and supported in part by a grant from the Pulitzer Center.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Mississippi Today

New Stage’s ‘Little Women’ musical opens aptly in Women’s History Month

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mississippitoday.org – Sherry Lucas – 2025-03-25 14:34:00

The March family at the center of “Little Women, The Broadway Musical” at New Stage Theatre includes (clockwise from left) Michaela Lin as Meg, Jennifer Smith as the mother Marmee, Kristina Swearingen as Jo (top), Sarah Pigott as Amy and Frannie Dean as Beth (front).

Ties that bind, not lines that divide, at the heart of “Little Women” are what make Louisa May Alcott’s beloved novel such an enduring classic. More than a century and a half since its 1868 publication, the March sisters’ coming-of-age tale continues to resonate in fresh approaches, say cast and crew in a musical version opening this week at New Stage Theatre in Jackson, Mississippi.

“Little Women, The Broadway Musical” adds songs to Alcott’s story of the four distinct March sisters — traditional, lovely Meg, spirited tomboy and writer Jo, quiet and gentle Beth, and artistic, pampered Amy. They are growing into young women under the watchful eye of mother Marmee as their father serves as an Army chaplain in the Civil War. “Little Women, The Broadway Musical” performances run March 25 through April 6 at New Stage Theatre.

In a serendipitous move, the production coincides with Women’s History Month in March, and has a female director at the helm — Malaika Quarterman, in her New Stage Theatre directing debut. Logistics and scheduling preferences landed the musical in March, to catch school matinees with the American classic.

The novel has inspired myriad adaptations in film, TV, stage and opera, plus literary retellings by other authors. This musical version debuted on Broadway in 2005, with music by Jason Howland, lyrics by Mindi Dickstein and book (script) by Allan Knee. 

“The music in this show brings out the heart of the characters in a way that a movie or a straight play, or even the book, can’t do,” said Cameron Vipperman, whose play-within-a-play role helps illustrate the writer Jo’s growth in the story. She read the book at age 10, and now embraces how the musical dramatizes, speeds up and reconstructs the timeline for more interest and engagement.

“What a great way to introduce kids that haven’t read the book,” director Quarterman said, hitting the highlights and sending them to the pages for a deeper dive on characters they fell in love with over the two-and-a-half-hour run time.

Sisters share a joyous moment in “Little Women, The Broadway Musical.” Cast members are, from left, Kristina Swearingen (Jo March), Michaela Lin (Meg), Sarah Pigott (Amy), Frannie Dean (Beth) and Alex Burnette (Laurie Laurence).

Joy, familial warmth, love, courage, loss, grief and resilience are all threads in a story that has captivated generations and continues to find new audiences and fresh acclaim (the 2019 film adaptation by Greta Gerwig earned six Academy Award nominations). 

In current contentious times, when diversity, equity and inclusion programs are being ripped out or rolled back, the poignant, women-centered narrative maintains a power to reach deep and unite. 

“Stories where females support each other, instead of rip each other apart to get to the finish line — which would be the goal of getting the man or something — are very few and far between sometimes,” Quarterman said. “It’s so special because it was written so long ago, with the writer being such a strong dreamer, and dreaming big for women.

“For us to actualize it, where a female artistic producer chooses this show and believes in a brand new female director and then this person gets to empower these great, local, awesome artists — It’s just really been special to see this story and its impact ripple through generations of dreamers.” For Quarterman, a 14-year drama teacher with Jackson Public Schools active in community theater and professional regional theater, “To be able to tell this story here, for New Stage, is pretty epic for me.”

Alcott’s story is often a touchstone for young girls, and this cast of grown women finds much in the source material that they still hold dear, and that resonates in new ways.

Kristina Swearingen plays Jo March, the aspiring writer at the center of the story in “Little Women, The Broadway Musical” at New Stage Theatre.

“I relate to Jo more than any other fictional character that exists,” Kristina Swearingen said of her character, the central figure Jo March. “At different parts of my life, I have related to her in different parts of hers.” 

The Alabama native, more recently of New York, recalled her “energetic, crazy, running-around-having-a-grand-old-time” youth in high school and college, then a career-driven purpose that led her, like Jo, to move to New York. 

Swearingen first did this show in college, before the loss of grandparents and a major move. Now, “I know what it’s like to grieve the loss of a loved one, and to live so far away from home, and wanting to go home and be with your family but also wanting to be in a place where your career can take off. .. It hits a lot closer to home.”

As one of four sisters in real life, Frannie Dean of Flora draws on a wealth of memories in playing Beth — including her own family position as next to the youngest of the girls. She and siblings read the story together in their homeschooled childhood, assigning each other roles. 

Kristina Swearingen (left) and Frannie Dean, as March sisters Jo and Beth, share a sweet moment in “Little Women, The Broadway Musical” at New Stage Theatre.

“Omigosh, this is my life,” she said, chuckling. “We would play pretend all day. … ‘Little Women’ is really sweet in that aspect, to really be able to carry my own experience with my family and bring it into the show. … It’s timeless in its nature, its warmth and what it brings to people.”

Jennifer Smith of Clinton, as March family matriarch Marmee, found her way in through a song. First introduced to Marmee’s song “Here Alone” a decade ago when starting voice lessons as an adult, she made it her own. “It became an audition piece for me. It became a dream role for me. It’s been pivotal in opening up doors for me.” 

She relishes aging into this role, countering a common fear of women in the entertainment field that they may “age out” of desirable parts. “It’s just a full-circle moment for me, and I’m grateful for it.”

Malaika Quarterman is the director of “Little Women, The Broadway Musical,” now showing through April 6 at New Stage Theatre.

Quarterman fell in love with the 1969 film version she watched with her sister when they were little, adoring the family’s playfulness and stability. Amid teenage angst, she identified with the inevitable growth and change that came with siblings growing up and moving on. Being a mom brings a whole different lens. 

“Seeing these little people in your life just growing up, being their own unique versions, all going through their own arc — it’s just fun, and I think that’s why you can stay connected” to the story at any life juncture, she said.

Cast member Slade Haney pointed out the rarity of a story set on a Northeastern homestead during the Civil War. 

“You’re getting to see what it was like for the women whose husbands were away at war — how moms struggled, how sisters struggled. You had to make your own means. … I think both men and women can see themselves in these characters, in wanting to be independent like Jo, or like Amy wanting to have something of value that belongs to you and not just just feel like you’re passed over all the time, and Meg, to be valuable to someone else, and in Beth, for everyone to be happy and content and love each other,” Haney said.

New Stage Theatre Artistic Director Francine Reynolds drew attention, too, to the rarity of an American classic for the stage offering an abundance of women’s roles that can showcase Jackson metro’s talent pool. “We just always have so many great women,” she said, and classics — “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Death of a Salesman,” for instance — often offer fewer parts for them, though contemporary dramas are more balanced.

Reynolds sees value in the musical’s timing and storyline. “Of course, we need to celebrate the contributions of women. This was a woman who was trying to be a writer in 1865, ’66, ’67. That’s, to me, a real trailblazing thing.

“It is important to show, this was a real person — Louisa May Alcott, personified as Jo. It’s important to hold these people up as role models for other young girls, to show that you can do this, too. You can dream your dream. You can strive to break boundaries.” 

It is a key reminder of advancements that may be threatened. “We’ve made such strides,” Reynolds said, “and had so many great programs to open doors for people, that I feel like those doors are going to start closing, just because of things you are allowed to say and things you aren’t allowed.”

For tickets, $50 (discounts for seniors, students, military), visit www.newstagetheatre.com or the New Stage Theatre box office, or call 601-948-3533.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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Rolling Fork – 2 Years Later

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mississippitoday.org – Vickie King – 2025-03-25 12:32:00

Tracy Harden stood outside her Chuck’s Dairy Bar in Rolling Fork, teary eyed, remembering not the EF-4 tornado that nearly wiped the town off the map two years before. Instead, she became emotional, “even after all this time,” she said, thinking of the overwhelming help people who’d come from all over selflessly offered.

Tracy Harden, owner of Chuck’s Dairy Bar, wipes away tears outside her U.S 61 restaurant in Rolling Fork, Monday, March 24, 2025. March 24th marks the second anniversary of a deadly EF-4 tornado that ravaged the town, claiming 15 lives. Last Sunday, another tornado hit the small town Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today

“We’re back now, she said, smiling. “People have been so kind.”

Tracy Harden, owner of Chuck’s Dairy Bar, stands outside her U.S 61 restaurant in Rolling Fork, Monday, March 24, 2025. March 24th marks the second anniversary of a deadly EF-4 tornado that ravaged the town, claiming 15 lives. Last Sunday, another tornado hit the small town with little damage and no loss of life. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
Chuck’s Dairy Bar, located on U.S 61 in Rolling Fork, Monday, March 24, 2025, the second anniversary of a deadly EF-4 tornado that ravaged the town, claiming 15 lives. Last Sunday, another, far less devastating tornado hit the small town. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today

“I stepped out of that cooler two years ago and saw everything, and I mean, everything was just… gone,” she said, her voice trailing off. “My God, I thought. What are we going to do now? But people came and were so giving. It’s remarkable, and such a blessing.”

A truck rests in what is left of Chuck’s Dairy Bar in Rolling Fork in this Saturday, March 25, 2023, photo taken after a tornado devasted the area on March 24, 2023.

“And to have another one come on almost the exact date the first came,” she said, shaking her head. “I got word from these young storm chasers I’d met. He told me they were tracking this one, and it looked like it was coming straight for us in Rolling Fork.”

“I got up and went outside.”

“And there it was!”

“I cannot tell you what went through me seeing that tornado form in the sky.”

The tornado that touched down in Rolling Fork last Sunday did minimal damage and claimed no lives.

Horns honk as people travel along U.S. 61. Harden smiles and waves.

She heads back into her restaurant after chatting with friends to resume grill duties as people, some local, some just passing through town, line up for burgers and ice cream treats.

Erma Peterson (left) and Chuck’s Dairy Bar owner Tracy Harden get a tickle listening to Peterson’s mother’s comments from inside the car on the goodness of ice cream, Monday, March 24, 2025, in Rolling Fork. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
A look inside Chuck’s Dairy Bar, Monday, March 24, 2025. Two years ago, an EF-4 tornado destroyed much of the town, including the restaurant. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today

Rolling Fork is mending, slowly. Although there is evidence of some rebuilding such as new homes under construction, many buildings like the library and post office remain boarded up and closed. A brutal reminder of that fateful evening two years ago.

New construction of homes in Rolling Fork, Monday, March 24, 2025, on the second anniversary of an EF-4 tornado that struck the town. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
Tornado devastation in Rolling Fork on Saturday, March 25, 2023. (Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today) Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
Two 18-wheelers were tossed like toy trucks onto a building, killing a man and his wife, on March 24, 2023. An EF-4 tornado struck Rolling Fork two years ago. Only the slab remains, Monday, March 24, 2025. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
Ellijah Washington, 64, of Rolling Fork, sifts through what is left of his Chuck’s Trailer Park home, Saturday, March 25, 2023. (Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today) Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
The view directly behind Chuck’s Dairy Bar in Rolling Fork, Monday, March 24, 2025. Only slabs in a field remain of Chuck’s Trailer Park. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
A tornado obliterated Chuck’s Trailer Park in Rolling Fork on March 24, 2023, as seen in this photo taken the next day. Not one mobile home remained. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
The view directly behind Chuck’s Dairy Bar in Rolling Fork, Monday, March 24, 2025. Only slabs in a field remain of Chuck’s Trailer Park. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
Tornado devastation in Rolling Fork on Saturday, March 25, 2023. (Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today) Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
Two years after a tornado destroyed much of Rolling Fork, new construction is in the works, Monday, March 25, 2025. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
Water tower construction in Rolling Fork, Monday, March 24, 2025. A deadly EF-4 tornado struck the town 2 years ago, killing 15 residents. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
Construction of new homes in Rolling Fork, Monday, March 24, 2025, on the second anniversary of an EF-4 tornado that struck the town. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
Two years after a tornado destroyed much of Rolling Fork, its resilient residents strive to rebuild their town, Monday, March 25, 2025. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
Two years ago, Rolling Fork was devastated by an EF-4 tornado that claimed 15 lives. A view of the small town, Monday, March 24, 2025. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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Remembering Big George Foreman and a poor guy named Pedro

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mississippitoday.org – Rick Cleveland – 2025-03-25 08:58:00

George Foreman, surely one of the world’s most intriguing and transformative sports figures of the 20th century, died over the weekend at the age of 76. Please indulge me a few memories.

This was back when professional boxing was in its heyday. Muhammad Ali was heavyweight champion of the world for a second time. The lower weight divisions featured such skilled champions and future champs as Alex Arugello, Roberto “Hands of Stone” Duran, Tommy “Hit Man” Hearns and Sugar Ray Leonard.

Boxing was front page news all over the globe. Indeed, Ali was said to be the most famous person in the world and had stunned the boxing world by stopping the previously undefeated Foreman in an eighth round knockout in Kinshasa, Zaire, in October of 1974. Foreman, once an Olympic gold medalist at age 19, had won his previous 40 professional fights and few had lasted past the second round. Big George, as he was known, packed a fearsome punch.

My dealings with Foreman began in January of 1977, roughly 27 months after his Ali debacle with Foreman in the middle of a boxing comeback. At the time, I was the sports editor of my hometown newspaper in Hattiesburg when the news came that Foreman was going to fight a Puerto Rican professional named Pedro Agosto in Pensacola, just three hours away.

Right away, I applied for press credentials and was rewarded with a ringside seats at the Pensacola Civic Center. I thought I was going to cover a boxing match. It turned out more like an execution.

The mismatch was evident from the pre-fight introductions. Foreman towered over the 5-foot, 11-inch Agosto. Foreman had muscles on top of muscles, Agosto not so much. When they announced Agosto weighed 205 pounds, the New York sports writer next to me wise-cracked, “Yeah, well what is he going to weigh without his head?”

It looked entirely possible we might learn.

Foreman toyed with the smaller man for three rounds, almost like a full-grown German shepherd dealing with a tiny, yapping Shih Tzu. By the fourth round, Big George had tired of the yapping. With punches that landed like claps of thunder, Foreman knocked Agosto down three times. Twice, Agosto struggled to his feet after the referee counted to nine. Nearly half a century later I have no idea why Agosto got up. Nobody present– or the national TV audience – would have blamed him for playing possum. But, no, he got up the second time and stumbled over into the corner of the ring right in front of me. And that’s where he was when Foreman hit him with an evil right uppercut to the jaw that lifted the smaller man a foot off the canvas and sprayed me and everyone in the vicinity with Agosto’s blood, sweat and snot – thankfully, no brains. That’s when the ref ended it.

It remains the only time in my sports writing career I had to buy a T-shirt at the event to wear home. 

So, now, let’s move ahead 18 years to July of 1995. Foreman had long since completed his comeback by winning back the heavyweight championship. He had become a preacher. He also had become a pitch man for a an indoor grill that bore his name and would sell more than 100 million units. He was a millionaire many times over. He made far more for hawking that grill than he ever made as a fighter. He had become a beloved figure, known for his warm smile and his soothing voice. And now he was coming to Jackson to sign his biography. His publishing company called my office to ask if I’d like an interview. I said I surely would.

One day at the office, I answered my phone and the familiar voice on the other end said, “This is George Foreman and I heard you wanted to talk to me.”

I told him I wanted to talk to him about his book but first I wanted to tell him he owed me a shirt.

“A shirt?” he said. “How’s that?”

I asked him if remembered a guy named Pedro Agosto. He said he did. “Man, I really hit that poor guy,” he said.

I thought you had killed him, I said, and I then told him about all the blood and snot that ruined my shirt.

“Man, I’m sorry about that,” he said. “I’d never hit a guy like that now. I was an angry, angry man back then.”

We had a nice conversation. He told me about finding his Lord. He told me about his 12 children, including five boys, all of whom he named George.

I asked him why he would give five boys the same name.

“I never met my father until late in his life,” Big George told me. “My father never gave me nothing. So I decided I was going to give all my boys something to remember me by. I gave them all my name.”

Yes, and he named one of his girls Georgette.

We did get around to talking about his book, and you will not be surprised by its title: “By George.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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