Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke Delivers Remarks Announcing Pattern or Practice Investigation of Rankin County, Mississippi, and Rankin County Sheriff’s Department

Remarks as Prepared for Delivery

Good afternoon. My name is Kristen Clarke, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department.

I am joined by Todd Gee, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi.

Today, the Justice Department is opening a civil investigation into the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department and Rankin County, Mississippi, to determine whether they engage in a pattern or practice of conduct that violates the Constitution or federal law. Based on an extensive review of publicly available information, as well as information provided to us, we have substantial grounds to open this investigation now.

The investigation will focus on three main issues. First, whether the sheriff’s department engages in a pattern or practice of using excessive force. Second, whether the department engages in a pattern or practice of making unlawful stops, searches and arrests. And third, whether the department engages in racially discriminatory policing practices.

We did not open this investigation based on a single incident or event, and we will not confine the investigation to a specific unit within the department. But of course, we cannot speak about Rankin County without mentioning the horrific violence that five former deputies inflicted on two Black men, Michael Jenkins and Eddie Parker, in January 2023. Although Mr. Jenkins and Mr. Parker survived the attack, the deputies brutally beat, tortured and taunted them with racial slurs. One deputy shot Mr. Jenkins in the mouth while attempting a mock execution. The deputies who committed these heinous acts called themselves “the Goon Squad.” They have since been convicted and sentenced to federal prison, including the lead defendant who was sentenced to 40 years in prison.

Since the Goon Squad’s sickening acts came to light, we have received reports of other instances indicating that this conduct was far too common, instances where Rankin deputies overused tasers, entered homes unlawfully, bandied about shocking racial slurs and deployed dangerous, cruel tactics to assault people in their custody. The evidence we received suggests that deputies fail to accurately report or document the force they use, and that the department neither supervises deputies adequately nor holds them accountable. Public reports indicate that deputies allegedly plant evidence, coerce confessions and have tried to hide evidence of their wrongdoing, particularly of the violence they have visited on the people of Rankin County. Allegations like these have persisted for years, which suggests widespread sheriff’s department failures to adequately train and supervise deputies, uncover wrongdoing when it occurs and hold deputies accountable for violations of law or policy. Put simply, the concerns about the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department did not end with the demise of the Goon Squad. There is no question that individual officers must be held accountable when they violate the law. The investigation we announce today, however, will use all the tools at our disposal to ensure that the people of Rankin County have effective, constitutional policing.

The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Mississippi will conduct this investigation jointly. This is a civil investigation and is entirely separate from any federal criminal investigation of Rankin deputies. We have just briefed Sheriff Bryan Bailey and representatives of the county, and we are pleased that they have pledged their support and cooperation.

The investigation will be thorough and objective. We will follow the facts and the law where they lead. We hope community members throughout Rankin County will trust us with their stories, experiences and views about public safety. We also will meet with the sheriff department’s leadership, and we’ll hear directly from deputies about the challenges they face.

If there is reasonable cause to believe the county and the department engage in a pattern or practice of constitutional or statutory violations, we will issue a public report of our conclusions.

We will then cooperate with the county and the sheriff’s department to reach an agreement on remedies. If we cannot reach an agreement, the Justice Department may bring a civil lawsuit seeking to stop the violations. We look forward to working with the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department and Rankin County toward the shared goals of ensuring constitutional policing and promoting greater trust and cooperation between law enforcement officers and the community members they serve.

It is helpful to frame this investigation in light of what the Civil Rights Division, often in partnership with U.S. Attorney’s offices, has already achieved with the pattern or practice investigation authority that Congress granted back in 1994. Since January 2021, the Civil Rights Division has opened 11 investigations of law enforcement agencies across the country pursuant to our authority under the police misconduct provisions of federal law. Our investigations range from the southwest in Phoenix, Arizona, to the northeast in Worcester, Massachusetts. They range from the north in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to the south in Memphis, Tennessee. They involve large police departments such as Louisville, Kentucky, and small ones like nearby Lexington, Mississippi. These investigations involve a variety of allegations and circumstances, but they have one important thing in common: they can be the most effective means the Justice Department has at its disposal to prevent the tremendous harm that stems from unlawful policing.

Our pattern or practice investigations have led to significant reforms of law enforcement agencies. For example, the Seattle Police Department reduced the use of serious force by 60%, and Seattle officers now use force in less than one-quarter of 1% of all events to which they respond. In Baltimore, the independent consent decree monitor found that officers use force less often and the force they do use is more likely to be consistent with department policy and the law. And under the consent decree in Albuquerque, use of force declined by 25% and violations of the force policy fell by half. To be sure, there is more work to be done in these agencies and other agencies that are being reformed under consent decrees. But our pattern or practice investigations are often the first step in making communities and the people in them safer.

Our investigation of the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department illustrates the indispensable role of pattern or practice investigations in protecting our nation’s communities and their most vulnerable citizens. Pattern or practice investigations are designed to determine whether communities — including those that have already suffered widely publicized harm — are still at risk from systemic constitutional violations. The five Rankin County Goon Squad deputies who assaulted Mr. Jenkins and Mr. Parker are in prison. But our prosecution of the Goon Squad deputies does not mean that the inadequate practices that may have fostered it have ended. Our investigation will answer that question.

I will now turn the floor over to U.S. Attorney Todd Gee for his remarks.