Deputies accused of abusing Black men are fired by Mississippi sheriff amid federal probe

Mississippi deputies accused of beating and sexually assaulting two Black men before shooting one of them in the mouth have been fired

Deputies accused of beating and sexually assaulting two Black men before shooting one of them in the mouth, prompting a federal civil rights investigation, have been fired, a Mississippi sheriff announced Tuesday.

The announcement comes months after Michael Corey Jenkins and his friend Eddie Terrell Parker said six deputies from the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department burst into a home without a warrant. The men said deputies beat them, assaulted them with a sex toy and shocked them repeatedly with stun guns in a roughly 90-minute period during the Jan. 24 episode, Jenkins and Parker said.

Jenkins said one of the deputies shoved a gun in his mouth and then fired the weapon, leaving him with serious injuries to his face, tongue and jaw.

Rankin County Sheriff Bryan Bailey announced Tuesday that deputies involved in the incident had been fired, but he would not provide the names of the deputies who had been terminated or say how many law enforcement officers were fired. Bailey would not answer additional questions about the January's episode.