Sev­er­al deputies from a Mis­sis­sip­pi sher­iff’s de­part­ment be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed by the Jus­tice De­part­ment for pos­si­ble civ­il rights vi­o­la­tions have been in­volved in at least four vi­o­lent en­coun­ters with Black men since 2019 that left two dead and an­oth­er with last­ing in­juries, an As­so­ci­at­ed Press in­ves­ti­ga­tion found.

Two of the men al­lege that Rankin Coun­ty sher­iff’s deputies shoved guns in­to their mouths dur­ing sep­a­rate en­coun­ters. In one case, the deputy pulled the trig­ger, leav­ing the man with wounds that re­quired parts of his tongue to be sewn back to­geth­er. In one of the two fa­tal con­fronta­tions, the man’s moth­er said a deputy kneeled on her son’s neck while he told them he couldn’t breathe.

Po­lice and court records ob­tained by the AP show that sev­er­al deputies who were ac­cept­ed to the sher­iff’s of­fice’s Spe­cial Re­sponse Team — a tac­ti­cal unit whose mem­bers re­ceive ad­vanced train­ing — were in­volved in each of the four en­coun­ters. In three of them, the heav­i­ly redact­ed doc­u­ments don’t in­di­cate if they were serv­ing in their nor­mal ca­pac­i­ty as deputies or as mem­bers of the unit.

Such units have drawn scruti­ny since the Jan­u­ary killing of Tyre Nichols, a Black fa­ther who died days af­ter be­ing se­vere­ly beat­en by Black mem­bers of a spe­cial po­lice team in Mem­phis, Ten­nessee. Nichols’ death led to a Jus­tice De­part­ment probe of sim­i­lar squads around the coun­try that comes amid the broad­er pub­lic reck­on­ing over race and polic­ing sparked by the 2020 po­lice mur­der of George Floyd in Min­neapo­lis.

In Mis­sis­sip­pi, the po­lice shoot­ing of Michael Corey Jenk­ins led the Jus­tice De­part­ment to open a civ­il rights in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the Rankin Coun­ty Sher­iff’s De­part­ment. Jenk­ins said six white deputies burst in­to a home where he was vis­it­ing a friend, and one put a gun in his mouth and fired. Jenk­ins’ hos­pi­tal records, parts of which he shared with AP, show he had a lac­er­at­ed tongue and bro­ken jaw.

Deputies said Jenk­ins was shot af­ter he point­ed a gun at them; de­part­ment of­fi­cials have not an­swered mul­ti­ple in­quiries from the AP ask­ing whether a weapon was found at the scene. Jenk­ins’ at­tor­ney, Ma­lik Shabazz, said his client didn’t have a gun.

“They had com­plete con­trol of him the en­tire time. Six of­fi­cers had full and com­plete con­trol of Michael the en­tire time,” Shabazz said. “So that’s just a fab­ri­ca­tion.”

Rankin Coun­ty, which has about 120 sher­iff’s deputies serv­ing its rough­ly 160,000 peo­ple, is pre­dom­i­nant­ly white and just east of the state cap­i­tal, Jack­son, home to one of the high­est per­cent­ages of Black res­i­dents of any ma­jor U.S. city. In the coun­ty seat of Bran­don, a tow­er­ing gran­ite-and-mar­ble mon­u­ment topped by a stat­ue of a Con­fed­er­ate sol­dier stands across the street from the sher­iff’s of­fice.

In a no­tice of an up­com­ing law­suit, at­tor­neys for Jenk­ins and his friend Ed­die Ter­rell Park­er said on the night of Jan. 24 the deputies sud­den­ly came in­to the home and pro­ceed­ed to hand­cuff and beat them. They said the deputies stunned them with Tasers re­peat­ed­ly over rough­ly 90 min­utes and, at one point, forced them to lie on their backs as the deputies poured milk over their faces. The men re­stat­ed the al­le­ga­tions in sep­a­rate in­ter­views with the AP.

When a Taser is used, it’s au­to­mat­i­cal­ly logged in­to the de­vice’s mem­o­ry. The AP ob­tained the au­to­mat­ed Taser records from the evening of Jan. 24. They show that deputies first fired one of the stun guns at 10:04 p.m. and fired one at least three more times over the next 65 min­utes. How­ev­er, those unredact­ed records might not paint a com­plete pic­ture, as redact­ed records show that Tasers were turned on, turned off or used dozens more times dur­ing that pe­ri­od.

The Mis­sis­sip­pi Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tion was brought in to in­ves­ti­gate the en­counter. Its sum­ma­ry says a deputy shot Jenk­ins at ap­prox­i­mate­ly 11:45 p.m., or about 90 min­utes af­ter a Taser was first used, which match­es the time­frame giv­en by Park­er and Jenk­ins. The deputy’s name was not dis­closed by the bu­reau.

Po­lice say the raid was prompt­ed by a re­port of drug ac­tiv­i­ty at the home. Jenk­ins was charged with pos­sess­ing be­tween 2 and 10 grams of metham­phet­a­mine and ag­gra­vat­ed as­sault on a po­lice of­fi­cer. Park­er was charged with two mis­de­meanours — pos­ses­sion of para­pher­na­lia and dis­or­der­ly con­duct. Jenk­ins and Park­er say the raid came to a head when the deputy shot Jenk­ins through the mouth. He still has dif­fi­cul­ty speak­ing and eat­ing.

An­oth­er Black man, Carvis John­son, al­leged in a fed­er­al law­suit filed in 2020 that a Rankin Coun­ty deputy placed a gun in­to his mouth dur­ing a 2019 drug bust. John­son was not shot.

There is no rea­son for an of­fi­cer to place a gun in a sus­pect’s mouth, and to have al­le­ga­tions of two such in­ci­dents is telling, said Samuel Walk­er, emer­i­tus pro­fes­sor of crim­i­nal jus­tice at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ne­bras­ka.

“If there are in­ci­dents with the same kind of pat­tern of be­hav­iour, they have their own set of rules,” he said. “So, these are not just chance ex­pe­ri­ences. It looks like a very clear pat­tern.”

Jenk­ins doesn’t know the name of the deputy who shot him. In the heav­i­ly redact­ed in­ci­dent re­port, an uniden­ti­fied deputy wrote, “I no­ticed a gun.” The unredact­ed sec­tions don’t say who shot Jenk­ins, on­ly that he was tak­en to a hos­pi­tal. Deputy Hunter El­ward swore in a sep­a­rate court doc­u­ment that Jenk­ins point­ed the gun at him.

El­ward’s name al­so ap­pears in po­lice re­ports and court records from the two in­ci­dents in which sus­pects were killed.

The sher­iff’s de­part­ment re­fused re­peat­ed in­ter­view re­quests and de­nied ac­cess to any of the deputies who were in­volved in the vi­o­lent con­fronta­tions. The de­part­ment has not said whether deputies pre­sent­ed a search war­rant, and it’s un­clear if any have been dis­ci­plined or are still mem­bers of the spe­cial unit.

The news out­let In­sid­er has been in­ves­ti­gat­ing the sher­iff’s de­part­ment and per­suad­ed a coun­ty judge to or­der the sher­iff to turn over doc­u­ments re­lat­ed to the deaths of four men in 2021. Chancery Judge Troy Far­rell Odom ex­pressed be­wil­der­ment that the de­part­ment had re­fused to make the doc­u­ments pub­lic.

“(The) day that our law en­force­ment of­fi­cers start shield­ing this in­for­ma­tion from the pub­lic, all the while re­peat­ing, ‘Trust us. We’re from the gov­ern­ment,’ is the day that should star­tle all Amer­i­cans,” Odom wrote.

The AP re­quest­ed body cam­era or dash­cam footage from the night of the Jenk­ins raid. Ja­son Dare, an at­tor­ney for the sher­iff’s de­part­ment, said there was no record of ei­ther.

Mis­sis­sip­pi doesn’t re­quire po­lice of­fi­cers to wear body cam­eras. In­ci­dent re­ports and court records tie deputies from the raid to three oth­er vi­o­lent en­coun­ters with Black men.

Dur­ing a 2019 stand­off, El­ward said Pierre Woods point­ed a gun at him while run­ning at deputies. Deputies then shot and killed him. In a state­ment to the Mis­sis­sip­pi Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tion ob­tained by the AP, El­ward said he fired at Woods eight times. Po­lice say they re­cov­ered a hand­gun at the scene of the Woods shoot­ing.

Court records place Chris­t­ian Ded­mon, an­oth­er deputy who shot at Woods, at the Jenk­ins raid.

Ded­mon was al­so among deputies in­volved in a 2019 ar­rest of John­son, ac­cord­ing to the law­suit John­son filed al­leg­ing that one of the deputies put a gun in his mouth as they searched him for drugs. John­son is cur­rent­ly im­pris­oned for sell­ing metham­phet­a­mine.

Oth­er doc­u­ments ob­tained by the AP de­tail an­oth­er vi­o­lent con­fronta­tion be­tween El­ward and Damien Cameron, a 29-year-old man with a his­to­ry of men­tal ill­ness. He died in Ju­ly 2021 af­ter be­ing ar­rest­ed by El­ward and Deputy Luke Stick­man, who al­so opened fire on Woods dur­ing the 2019 stand­off. A grand ju­ry de­clined to bring charges in the case last Oc­to­ber.

In an in­ci­dent re­port, El­ward wrote that while re­spond­ing to a van­dal­ism call, he re­peat­ed­ly shocked Cameron with a Taser, punched and grap­pled with Cameron at the home of his moth­er, Mon­i­ca Lee. He said af­ter get­ting Cameron to his squad car, he again stunned him to get him to pull his legs in­to the ve­hi­cle.

Af­ter go­ing back in­side to re­trieve his Taser, deputies re­turned to find Cameron un­re­spon­sive. El­ward wrote that he pulled Cameron from the car and per­formed CPR, but Cameron was lat­er de­clared dead at a hos­pi­tal.

Lee, who wit­nessed the con­fronta­tion, told the AP that af­ter sub­du­ing her son, El­ward kneeled on his back for sev­er­al min­utes. She said when Stick­man ar­rived, he kneeled on her son’s neck while hand­cuff­ing him, and that her son com­plained he couldn’t breathe.

Lee said she lat­er went out­side, hop­ing to talk to her son be­fore the deputies drove him away.

“I walked out­side to tell him good­bye and that I loved him, and that I would try to see him the next day. That’s when I no­ticed they were on the dri­ver’s side of the car do­ing CPR on him,” Lee said. “I fell to the ground scream­ing and hol­ler­ing.” —BRAN­DON, Miss. (AP)

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Sto­ry by MICHAEL GOLD­BERG | As­so­ci­at­ed Press. Michael Gold­berg is a corps mem­ber for the As­so­ci­at­ed Press/Re­port for Amer­i­ca State­house News Ini­tia­tive. Re­port for Amer­i­ca is a non-prof­it na­tion­al ser­vice pro­gram that places jour­nal­ists in lo­cal news­rooms to re­port on un­der-cov­ered is­sues. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at https://twit­ter.com/mik­er­gold­berg.