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Justice Department opens civil rights investigation into Mississippi “Goon Squad” sheriff’s office
The Justice Department on Thursday announced it is opening a civil rights investigation into Rankin County, Mississippi, and the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department. A group of the agency’s former officers — who called themselves the “Goon Squad” — pleaded guilty last year to a series of charges for torturing two Black men.
“The public is now well aware of the heinous attack inflicted on two Black men by Rankin County deputies who called themselves the ‘Goon Squad,'” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland in a statement. “Those officers have since been convicted and sentenced, but we are launching this civil pattern or practice investigation to examine serious allegations that the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department systematically violates people’s constitutional rights through excessive use of force; unlawful stops, searches, and arrests; and discriminatory policing.”
Garland said the allegations against the sheriff’s department include overusing tasers, using racial slurs, entering homes illegally and accusations deputies have “deployed dangerous, cruel tactics to assault people in their custody.”
The Justice Department said Rankin County officials have said they will cooperate with the investigation.
The Rankin County Sheriff’s Department made national headlines when five former deputies, along with one former Richland, Mississippi, police officer, were accused of torturing two Black men — Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker — in January of 2023.
Rogelio V. Solis / AP
All six former officers pleaded guilty to a series of state and federal charges, admitting to breaking into a home without a warrant and torturing Jenkins and Parker for hours, going so far as to shoot one of them in the mouth. The men were also beaten, tased repeatedly and assaulted with a sex toy, prosecutors said.
The group of former officers had arrived at the Braxton, Mississippi, house after a White person called Rankin County Sheriff’s Deputy Brett McAlpin to complain about two Black men staying with a White woman. McAlpin told Christian Dedmon, another deputy, who then texted a group of White deputies internally known for using excessive force who called themselves the “Goon Squad,” according to prosecutors.
McAlpin, Dedmon and fellow former deputies Hunter Elward, Jeffrey Middleton and Daniel Opdyke — along with former Richland police officer Joshua Hartfield — were all sentenced to decades in prison on both state and federal charges earlier this year.
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McDonald’s investing $100 million to lure customers back to the fast food giant after E. coli outbreak
McDonald’s is investing $100 million to bring customers back to stores after an outbreak of E. coli food poisoning tied to onions on the fast-food giant’s Quarter Pounder hamburgers.
The investments include $65 million that will go directly to the hardest-hit franchises, the company said.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that slivered onions on the Quarter Pounders were the likely source of the E. coli. Taylor Farms in California recalled onions potentially linked to the outbreak.
The E. coli outbreak has sickened 104 people in 14 states, federal health officials said in an update on Wednesday.
At least 34 people have been hospitalized, and four developed hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), a serious condition that can cause kidney failure. An 88-year-old man who resided in Grand Junction, Colorado, died, as previously reported. The illnesses began at the end of September, and the most recent onset of illness occurred as of Oct. 21, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The Food and Drug Administration has said that “there does not appear to be a continued food safety concern related to this outbreak at McDonald’s restaurants.”
However, the outbreak hurt the company’s sales.
Quarter Pounders were removed from menus in several states in the early days of the outbreak.
In a statement Wednesday obtained by CBS News, McDonald’s said it had found an “alternate supplier” for the approximately 900 restaurants that had temporarily stopped serving Quarter Pounders with slivered onions.
“Over the past week, these restaurants resumed the sale of Quarter Pounder burgers with slivered onions,” McDonald’s said.
CBS News reached out to McDonald’s on Saturday for a statement regarding the reported investment.
Health officials said Saturday they have confirmed the first U.S. case of a new form of mpox that was first seen in eastern Congo.
The person had traveled to eastern Africa and was treated in Northern California upon return, according to the California Department of Public Health. Symptoms are improving and the risk to the public is low.
Mpox is a rare disease caused by infection with a virus that’s in the same family as the one that causes smallpox. It is endemic in parts of Africa, where people have been infected through bites from rodents or small animals.
Earlier this year, scientists reported the emergence of a new form of mpox in Africa that was spread through close contact including through sex.
More than 3,100 confirmed cases have been reported just since late September, according to the World Health Organization. The vast majority of them have been in three African countries – Burundi, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Since then, cases of travelers with the new mpox form have been reported in Germany, India, Kenya, Sweden, Thailand, Zimbabwe, and the United Kingdom.
Health officials earlier this month said the situation in Congo appears to be stabilizing. The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated Congo needs at least 3 million mpox vaccines to stop the spread, and another 7 million vaccines for the rest of Africa.
The current outbreak is different from the 2022 global outbreak of mpox where gay and bisexual men made up the vast majority of cases.