Rankin County Sheriff Bryan Bailey, who oversaw 'goon squad' that tortured Black men in Mississippi, is running for reelection unopposed

• Rankin County Sheriff Bryan Bailey is running for reelection unopposed.
• Five Rankin County deputies pleaded guilty to torturing two Black men earlier this month.
• Bailey said he will not step down after activists called for his resignation.

A Mississippi sheriff who oversees a department where five deputies were convicted of torturing two Black men earlier this year — and where at least five people died in its custody in 2021 — is running for reelection unopposed. 

Malik Shabazz, an attorney for the two men tortured in January, told a CBS affiliate in Jackson on Tuesday that he believes the problem extends beyond the group of officers who pleaded guilty and that the sheriff, Bryan Bailey, should be removed from office.

"We must press for the maximum sentence for this hate crime, and we must continue to press for the removal of Bryan Bailey as sheriff," Shabazz said. Activists in Rankin County have also been calling for the sheriff to resign.

For now, Bailey remains on the ballot in November, according to the Rankin County elections website. Bailey received a total of 22,850 votes in the Republican primary on August 8. He'll be running unopposed though there is an option to write in a candidate. 

At a press conference on August 3, Bailey said he does not plan to resign from his position. Bailey said that "the only thing" he is guilty of is "trusting grown men who swore an oath to do their job correctly."

"I'm going to stay here. I'm not going to resign," Bailey said, according to SuperTalk FM, a local radio station. "I'm going to fix these problems and try to leave this [department] in better shape than I found it."

Bailey has been the sheriff of Rankin County for more than a decade.

Rankin County deputies convicted of torturing Black men 

Six law enforcement officers in total pleaded guilty on August 3 to federal charges in connection to the attack on two Black men in January. Five of the men are deputies for the Rankin County Sheriff's Office, and one is an officer for the nearby Richland Police Department.

The officers — Brett McAlpin, Jeffrey Middleton, Christian Dedmon, Hunter Elward, Daniel Opdyke, and Joshua Hartfield — called themselves the "goon squad" because of their willingness to use excessive force, according to a criminal complaint.

The six men broke into the home of Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker in Braxton, Mississippi on January 24. The officers then beat and sexually assaulted the two men before Elward eventually shot Jenkins in the mouth, according to the complaint. 

The officers took notice of the house only after one of McAlpin's white neighbors complained to him that they saw "suspicious" Black men staying at a nearby home, court documents say. The officers searched for drugs but found no evidence of any wrongdoing, according to court documents.

"Based on the facts in their guilty pleas, all former deputies lied to me the night of the incident," Bailey said in a statement to Insider after the convictions.

A string of deaths at the Rankin County Sheriff's Department

At least five people died while in the custody of the Rankin County Sheriff's Office during an 8-month period in 2021. Insider sued the department for records related to three of those deaths.

One of the officers who pleaded guilty to the torture of the two Black men in January — Hunter Elward — was also involved in the 2021 death of Damien Cameron, another Black man. Elward tased and beat Cameron before he died.

Monica Lee, Cameron's mother, told Insider that deputies knelt on her son's back for more than 15 minutes even as he complained that he could not breathe. A state medical examiner found Cameron's cause of death inconclusive, according to Lee.

A Mississippi grand jury declined to press charges in October 2022 against Elward and other deputies involved in that beating due to insufficient evidence.

Another officer who pleaded guilty to attacking Jenkins and Parker, Brett McAlpin, was also involved in the 2021 arrest of Cory Jackson before his death in the Rankin County jail in 2021, according to Jackson's mother. 

Deputies arrested Jackson, who is white, in May 2021 while his family was trying to take him to the hospital because he was experiencing a psychotic episode. Jackson's family told Insider deputies refused to take him to the hospital. 

Instead, authorities took Jackson to the Rankin County Detention Center, where he died after officers strapped him to a restraint chair and held him there for an hour.

Jackson's mother, Joyce Redell, told Insider that she's glad several deputies are facing charges for the attack on Jenkins and Parker, but that she wants to see repercussions at the top.

"I'm happy. Still not real happy about the main bird Mr. Bryan Bailey," Redell told Insider. "He does need to resign."