(CNN) — The Justice Department has launched a civil rights investigation into the sheriff’s department in Mississippi’s Rankin County after several of its deputies – including some who were in a self-styled “Goon Squad” – abused and tortured two Black men in a racially charged home raid last year.
The federal investigation will examine whether the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department engages in unconstitutional patterns or practices of using excessive force, racially discriminatory policing of Black residents and conducting unlawful stops, searches and arrests, US Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a news release Thursday.
The civil rights investigation is the 12th pattern or practice probe of law enforcement misconduct launched during the Biden administration. Rankin County is located just east of Jackson, the state’s capital.
Five former Rankin County sheriff’s deputies and a former Richland police officer were handed lengthy prison sentences this year after pleading guilty to federal and state charges related to the January 2023 torture of Michael Jenkins and Eddie Parker . At least several of the defendants were part of a group of deputies who called themselves the “Goon Squad” because of their willingness to use excessive force and not report it, federal prosecutors have said.